One Step Left
by Teyke
Summary: Steve Rogers of Earth-199999.18382 finds himself hopping through worlds with the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth-9810.2 as his reluctant guide. Meanwhile, the man he is searching for must decide who to trust – but the shadow falling over his mind makes it difficult for him to tell friend from foe... [Sequel to The Shadow of Tony Stark]
1. Chapter 1

**THEN**

Even before he'd gotten shrapnel embedded in his chest, Tony had been accustomed to occasionally being at the centre of explosions. Thus, when he was fiddling around with his left gauntlet and the world dissolved in orange-red-white, his first reaction was to drop the gauntlet and throw his arms up to protect his face, even as the ground staggered out from under his feet. A moment later it came staggering back, with enough force to knock him on his ass – and although he hadn't _felt_ like he'd gotten tossed through the air, apparently he had, because the lab bench wasn't there to stop him. _Ow_. _That_ was his tailbone hitting concrete, and it fucking _hurt_.

Wincing, he lowered one arm – the one attached to the hand still holding the soldering iron; fortunately he realized this before he attempted to rub his wounded posterior – and surveyed the damage to the lab. A quick look told him that it wasn't as bad as he feared. In fact, there didn't seem to be any damage at all.

On the downside, it also clearly wasn't _his_ lab.

The room he was in was all concrete, walls and floor and ceiling. The Spartan decoration and the way the racks of computer equipment were set up reminded him nothing so much as the Facility – certainly, the laser setup pointed disconcertingly in his direction was familiar. Two black-clad SHIELD guards – or at least he _thought_ they were SHIELD personnel; it was sometimes a bit hard to tell when everyone wore black and balaclavas – stood guarding a steel door, the only exit from the room that Tony could see. There were two or three technicians, moving behind the computer bays, but otherwise the room was quite empty for a SHIELD-run lab. Though it _was_ definitely a SHIELD-run lab:

"Well, I'll be damned, doctor," said Maria Hill, staring at Tony. "It worked." Her hair had been cut short since the last time he'd seen her, to little more than a buzz cut, and she was wearing civilian clothing. Beat up, _grungy_ civilian clothing, he noted. She was standing off to the side, well away from the ten-foot-wide circle surrounding Tony, a circle made up of engraved – runes? What was this, was SHIELD practicing fucking _magic_ now? Well, knowing SHIELD, they _would_ if given half a chance, and probably without any fucking clue about what they were _really_ doing.

And they'd used it to teleport him – _him_. _Shit_. Every hair on the back of his neck stood up; he pressed one wrist against the ground, gently, just hard enough to push the activation button on the bracelet. So much for worrying that wearing them in the lab was giving in to the paranoia.

"SHIELD really needs to stop doubting me," came Bruce's voice, Sahara-dry. Or maybe Antarctic-dry; there was more than a little chilliness in there. Maria held up her hands in, apparently, completely non-sarcastic surrender as Tony clambered to his feet and picked out Bruce's location – behind a bay of computers.

"My apologies, doctor," Hill demurred instantly – and sincerely. What the hell? That wasn't how SHIELD behaved toward Bruce – wariness, yes, but this was more than that, this was – what _was_this? His brain translated the runes on the ground into numbers automatically – _399285... 0009943..._

"So, uh, hey guys," Tony said, shoving his left hand in his pocket and flipping the iron over and over with his right as he assessed his resources. Arc reactor – check. Bracelets – check. One soldering iron, still hot but rapidly cooling now that it was no longer plugged in – check. Too bad he hadn't held on to the gauntlet he'd been tinkering with instead, but, well, it _had_ seemed the likeliest source of explosions. "What's going on?"

Hill met his eyes squarely, and there was not the slightest hint of either fear or compromise in her gaze. "We need your help."

"He's got an arc reactor!" the other technician called suddenly, sounding – panicked. What? Hill's eyes widened and her gaze shifted slightly to the side, to –

"Behind you!" Steve warned him.

Tony lunged forward, away from the sudden presence behind him at neck-level, but wasn't quick enough to avoid Natasha's legs tangling with his own, dumping him back on his ass again; a flash of red in the corner of his vision identified her, as if the move with the legs hadn't been enough. This time reflexes kicked in, and six months of sparring sessions, whenever Steve teamed up with JARVIS to get him out of the lab; he managed to at least not injure himself further in falling. But no amount of sparring sessions would ever put him at Natasha's level – he tried rolling, tried to get enough distance to disengage, but there was no chance. Something jabbed him in the thigh, a needle sliding easily through the material of his pants, and the room kept rolling over even though his body had stopped. His head lolled to the side, suddenly unsupported by his neck.

A familiar pattern in the runes stood out, oscillated in his vision as it began to tunnel. One of the types that made more sense in hex... _0A93DD3..._

"Fuuuh," he tried to swear, but his tongue wouldn't cooperate. The pattern wavered away and disappeared.

"Tony!"

So did everything else.

* * *

**NOW:**

_" - this spell that so binds!"_

The light brightened and flared toward green. The workshop vanished around them. Some invisible force flung Steve away; he hit the ground and rolled nimbly to his feet. His peripheral vision caught scenery that he didn't spend much time processing: grass, mostly brown and dead, a gently sloping hill on one side ending at the side of an unpaved road, and a field of old, dried cornstalks on the other. A line of trees denoted where the field ended and its neighbours began, dead stalks from different crops that Steve couldn't identify. Two fields over was a house and a couple of sheds. Sound – local insects; faintly, far off in the distance, cars on a freeway. The air smelled like autumn, old leaves and dead grass.

They were _definitely_ not in New York anymore.

"What the - no!" the man who was not, _could not_ be Tony Stark exclaimed. The device that he had been holding a moment before was smoking; he pulled out a tiny screwdriver from a pocket somewhere in those ridiculous pyjamas and prized the metal backing off, looking at the contents within in dismay, before looking up to glare at Steve. "What have you done?" he demanded. "I've lost the trail, now, when I was so close to the end, and to setting this all to rights!"

"Who are you?" Steve demanded in return. His voice came out hard and flat without conscious decision; he held the piece of U that he'd grabbed in one hand, ready to throw, as loath as he was to use it as a weapon.

"Steve." The man blinked at him in confusion – or possibly he winked. Only half his face was visible behind that gold-plated mask. "It's me – Tony. A different version than yours, yes," he continued hurriedly, "but me all the same." He blinked again, now looking concerned. "Are you alright?"

_A different version than yours_. Son of a gun.

"And 'my version'? What did you do to him?" Nothing worse than what he did himself, surely...

"Nothing!" the other Tony insisted. "I've been _trying_ to track down the person responsible for all this confusion and get it undone." He waved the device about mournfully, and then snapped his fingers – the small metal box vanished into thin air, along with the screwdriver. Steve shifted, readjusting his stance – if the man could do that to small objects, could he do it to something larger?_Threat_, his brain screamed.

"Explain," he snapped.

The other Tony made an annoyed face, one so familiar that Steve's heart ached from the sight. "Didn't the one who got dropped in on you figure anything out? Well, certainly," he held his hands up to the sky, turning about dramatically to proclaim, "it's not like I have anything better to do, now that you _broke_ the detector and _stranded _us somewhere off course!"

"Tony died two weeks ago," said Steve.

The other man's arms dropped and he turned back sharply. All the irritation had disappeared from his face; now his expression was something to match Natasha's on poker nights, except for his visible eye, which was cold and hard. He searched Steve's face for a long moment, then swallowed. "Damn it." The curse was quiet, but emphatic. "I was afraid that would happen. _Damn_ them."

"Stop," Steve cut him off, _done_ with irritatingly vague pronouncements. "Just – stop. Tell me. What is going on?"

Tony regarded him soberly, and strangely, in that instant, standing on the side of a farming road out in the middle of nowhere, he did not look half so ridiculous – blue pyjamas and all. "Six days ago – my time; it may be different for you – someone activated a catalyzing bio-locked multi-dimensional gate," he said, and _that_ was Tony, English and all. 'Catalyzing bio-locked' didn't make any sense to Steve, but 'multi-dimensional gate' – that he got. He felt his jaw tighten. "It pulled a subset of us – Tony Starks from various alternate realities – into our neighbours' realities, so to speak. Everyone in the loop was shifted... well, not one reality down, or it would be a lot easier to find the person responsible and get it fixed." He sighed, putting his right hand to his temple, as if to ease a headache. "One reality along the _loop_ - but there's nothing even approximating regular intervals on the loop, so that's not much help. I've been hopping through realities, following the energy trace, trying to track them down so I can reverse it – I'm surprised I haven't found more fatalities before now. We live dangerous lives, and being suddenly dropped into a fight without warning, against the type of villains so many of us take on..." he shook his head.

"It wasn't – " Steve shook his head. He felt light, almost floaty. Tony was – Tony had been shifted. Was that the flash of light? Or had that been after? "My Tony – the Tony from my universe – he was... switched?"

"Yes," the other Tony said, and there was a hint of compassion there, now, in his icy blue eye. "Your universe was part of the loop. If you haven't had a visitor from another reality show up in place of the, ah, body, then the man you knew – that wasn't the Tony Stark who died."

"Oh," said Steve, feeling supremely, profoundly empty. Here it was: a straight answer, for once. The discrepancies in the autopsy hadn't been because Tony was testing immortality tech on himself. Tony hadn't killed his kids. He hadn't killed himself.

There should have been relief – but there was nothing. The man he knew – that had been the man who had built a mechanical virus responsible for the infection of nearly a million people. The man who had sprung murderers from jail and equipped two mercenary scientists with kill-switches to keep them in line. The man who had been secretly trying to build portals to other realities... which meant that maybe _he_ was the one responsible for the switch.

And whether Steve had known him or not, the man who'd blown off his own head two weeks ago was still Tony Stark.

"Right, well," the other Tony said after a moment, sounding supremely uncomfortable. "My detector is fried. It wasn't built to account for the signatures of two people during the jump, and the way you grabbed on to me – we've fallen _somewhere_ in the interval, but where, I have no idea." He looked around in faint disgust. "Not someplace with a lab, unfortunately. Maybe not even some place with modern technology – the timelines don't always match up."

"There's a freeway that way," Steve pointed. "And a house over there."

The other Tony blinked/winked at him again. "Always the observant soldier," he said, sounding amused, and then he shook out his wrists and... _changed_, the way that Loki had, when he'd donned his full regalia of cape and horns. Steve nearly brained him with the piece of U, and although he managed to refrain, wasn't able to conceal the flinch of motion. Tony – oh, god, he didn't look like Tony now so much as he looked like _Howard,_ with that thin mustache instead of the Van Dyke, the suit in an older style than the ones Tony favoured...

But Tony didn't have magical powers. The ability to make things disappear from thin air – well, not yet, but he'd shown Steve that project – so, perhaps. But the way the light shimmered about the imposter's clothes as he changed... no, that was the exact same thing as _Loki_ had done.

"Who are you?" Steve demanded again, _this close_ to throwing the piece of U at him, hard enough to knock him unconscious – maybe hard enough to kill.

"Anthony Edward Stark," the imposter insisted, holding up his hands, placating, for all that his tone was lightly sarcastic. "Haven't we been over this? I could have sworn we _just –_"

"Try again."

"Steve – oh, this is about the magic, isn't it?" The imposter put his hands down, sighing, and Steve should have thrown, he _should have _– but something stayed his hand. "So many of me are irrational about it. Magic isn't evil, it's not the enemy of science – hell, I'm the Sorcerer Supreme of earth – my earth; Earth-9810, in most catalogues – and I would not be half so good at my job if I weren't an engineer."

"Magic is just science that's not understood," Steve threw back at him, because even if it wasn't a belief that he fully shared, Tony had ranted about the matter often enough.

"Is that how yours views it?" the imposter – the sorcerer – the other Tony – Steve had no idea what to think of him. Whoever, whatever he was, he waved a hand dismissively. "_Technically,_ yes, correct, fine, everything breaks down to fundamentals, but _practically_... no, at this point in time, the human approach to them is too different. And you're giving me a tension headache out of sympathy, so would you, please, stop acting like you're on the verge of braining me with that," he gestured at the piece of U, and Steve flinched on the verge of movement again, causing the other to flinch in turn, "and _calm down_ for a moment? Steve – your version of Tony may still be alive. We can get him back."

Steve searched his expression, but the other Tony looked, honestly, _earnest_. Earnest in a way that Tony sometimes dropped into, by accident, before he'd cover it up with flash and snark. Slowly, Steve let himself slip out of combat readiness, let his arm fall back to his side. He didn't drop the piece of U – it would have been just as disrespectful as using it as a weapon, without the justification of necessity – but the other Tony relaxed regardless.

"Alright. We need to – "

Faintly, over the roar of the distant freeway, there was another thrumming sound – one growing louder, fast. Steve held up a hand, hushing him to silence. The other Tony picked up on it a moment later, tilting his head to listen as well. Steve turned first, pinpointing the location, and then a moment later a pair of blurs in the sky resolved into two cloaked quinjets. Their cloaking technology was vastly inferior to the cloak that Tony had cooked up, he noted absently. Vastly inferior – but they were also hiding much larger payloads. As the jets drew nearer the angle changed and the cloaking became completely useless, giving Steve a good look at the weaponry they were sporting.

"Or we could see if the lab might come to us," Tony suggested, but his expression had turned grim.

_"UNREGISTERED METAS, YOU ARE UNDER ARREST,"_ blared a voice from a loudspeaker on the right, as the jets pulled into a hover position a few dozen feet overhead. _"PUT YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD AND SURRENDER YOURSELVES TO THE AUTHORITY OF THE SUPREME HOMELAND INTERVENTION, ENFORCEMENT, AND LOGISTICS DIRECTORATE."_

"Hmm, no," said Tony, and he threw out one hand in front of himself; the strange clothing and cape melted back into existence as a glimmering blue-white shield sprung up around them both. It was not a moment too soon; a moment later there was the roar of a machine gun opening up and the shield started throwing off bursts of light from the impacts of the bullets. Tony staggered, hard enough that Steve grabbed his shoulder to keep him from falling over.

"Can you hold that?" Steve asked, eyeing the jets. The piece of U he was still holding felt very small, and useless, indeed.

"Don't need to," Tony grunted, crooking the fingers on both his hands in strange, arcane gestures. "_By candle-dark and starry day – out from this place I would away!"_

Light flashed, and the world fell out from under them again.

They landed by another dead cornfield, although Steve wasn't sent flying into the dirt this time. Their shield hadn't travelled with them; after a moment, Other Tony – Steve dubbed him Anthony, because while Tony hated his full name, a man who went around dressed like _that_ deserved it – pulled away and stood upright. He was taller than Tony was, Steve realized; he'd vaguely noticed it before, but, distracted as he had been over everything else, it hadn't really registered.

He was also glowing faintly, a warm, golden light, as he rubbed at his temples. Some sort of after-effect of doing magic? "Well, that went well," Anthony sighed.

"Where are we?" Steve asked, looking around. It looked the same – maybe a bit greyer, like they'd hopped forward in time into later autumn – but the sounds were different. Quieter. He couldn't hear a freeway, he realized, or any insects. There was only the wind stirring dead stalks.

"Same place, just a few realities over," Anthony said looking around. "But since I don't know where we were, I don't know where we are, either – oh, that's not good." He held up his hands in front of him, inspecting them – or inspecting the glow, rather. "Be on your guard, Captain."

"For what?" Steve asked. Anthony was squinting around him, and the strange gem in his faceplate was glowing brighter.

"For anything. This ward is one that protects me from more subtle attacks – but this isn't a spell," he frowned. "The intent behind it... this must have been an enormous use of – oh, no." Anthony's eye widened and he reached out, grabbing onto Steve; the golden light spread over to encompass Steve, too, washing his vision yellow. _"Candle-dark and starry day –"_

The world vanished a third time. The golden ward faded with their landing in another – although not from Anthony's hands; he'd grabbed onto Steve's other shoulder, too, and was examining him with his right eye closed. The gem covering his left eye gleamed unsettlingly. "Hoggoth's beard," he muttered, and then, briskly, "Strip."

"What?"

"Strip. Remove your clothes," Anthony repeated impatiently. There was nothing joking in his manner – Steve wouldn't have put it past Tony to try to trick him into public nudity, but Anthony looked deadly serious. "You were just irradiated with over ten Grays. That is – very life-threatening."

"How did – " That was a stupid question, one with an obvious answer. Steve cut himself off and said instead, "I have a healing factor."

"I'm banking on that to let you survive the month," Anthony said grimly. "Strip. For god's sake, I'll conjure you different clothes after. You need to be decontaminated immediately – as futile a measure as that may be."

"This place isn't radioactive too, is it?" Steve asked, pulling his shirt over his head and kicking off his boots, not bothering to undo the laces. It seemed unlikely he'd ever get to wear them again; why bother with care?

"No, or the ward would still be flaring."

Steve hoped he was right – this world looked just as dead as the last one. Dead grass crumbled under his toes as he hopped out of his pants and boxers, pulling out his phone from his back pocket before he tossed them aside. "What now?" he asked, shivering. Naked, the air felt far colder than it had a minute ago when he'd been fully clothed.

"Those too," Anthony said, still impatient. Steve looked down at the phone in his hand, and the broken-off piece of U.

"Can't you just decontaminate them, too?" The thought of throwing away either made him feel faintly ill – or, no, that wasn't it. He just felt... ill. Nauseous, like he might vomit. Of course - radiation poisoning. How much was ten Grays? Enough to kill him within the month, apparently.

Anthony closed his eye. A vein was throbbing in his forehead. "Steve. I am trying to save your life. Fine, yes, I will see what I can do, now will you _toss the heavily irradiated materials away_?"

He did. Before they even landed, Anthony had gestured and they'd disappeared into thin air; a moment later his clothing did the same, although this time there was a burnt smell that made him think he would not be getting them back. Before he could protest, however, the sorcerer started chanting something else. _"Waters of the seven seas, rise forth to answer me!"_

It was like somebody had opened up a firehose directly overtop his head – like he'd crashed into the ice again and it was bursting through the glass. Water rushed over him, in such a torrent that he could scarcely breathe; it wasn't _cold_, exactly, but neither was it warm – combined with the chill of the air, the churning nausea in his gut doubled, until he leaned over and vomited. The spray of water washed the sick away immediately, but he kept retching, half-choking on it; he scarcely noted that the spray had shifted, aimed at his shoulders, now, and at an angle.

"I thought you'd just have a healing spell," he finally managed to force out, some minutes later, when the water stopped rushing out of nowhere at him. The cold seemed to emanate from some point inside him, like a spot in his heart hadn't thawed out properly from the ice; one more nightmare that he thought he'd left behind. The deluge had left him dizzy; he couldn't get his bearings. His feet squelched in the mud, the grains of dirt and rocks scraping painfully. He felt like the water had blasted off at least one layer of skin, maybe two.

"Magic, much like everything else, is better at breaking things than fixing them," Anthony informed him. Another wave of his hands, doing something... _complicated,_ and suddenly he was holding a fluffy blue and white towel, which he held out to Steve. Clumsy, his hands numb, Steve took it, while Anthony muttered other spells at him. It was at least soft enough not to irritate his raw skin too much more.

"There's nothing further I can do from here," Anthony decided, flicking his hands again and then handing over shirt, pants, and boxers. Steve shimmied into them, trying not to get mud on the pants, which was more difficult than it looked when his feet were caked in it. Anthony conjured up socks and boots, too, before apparently realizing Steve's difficulty, and banishing them back to wherever they'd come from. "We need proper medical facilities." He ran his hand through his hair, thinking, and it stuck up all over the place, just like Tony's.

"Can't we just go back to my world?" Steve asked. His teeth were still nearly chattering; he wrapped his arms around himself and felt no warmer. The nausea had returned – had never really gone away – but he didn't feel like there was anything left in his stomach to bring up.

"Hah. I wish. We got dumped off-course when you tagged along and _broke _the – anyway, if I could transport us back to start, we wouldn't be _lost_, now would we? If I don't know where we are, then I don't know where I'm going. But you've got the right idea – we need to get away from this subset. Far too apocalyptic." He grabbed Steve's shoulder again, light flaring between them, and this time when he chanted his voice was deeper and somehow more resonant than before; Steve braced himself. _"Shades of the Seraphim, take from the day, power enough to wish us away!"_

This time, they didn't land at the side of a cornfield. They landed at in the middle of a crowded New York sidewalk, eliciting several cries of surprise from various passerby. A woman bounced off of Steve's side, nearly falling over; golden light sparked between them like a shield when he tried to grab her to keep her upright, and he missed her when he flinched back.

"Sorry, ma'am," he apologized immediately, offering her his hand to help her up. The golden light sparked again, repelling him.

"Don't do that, I'm not shielding you for _your_ health," Anthony snapped at him, pulling a phone from thin air - literally; he flourished his hands and there it was, in the same way that he'd produced clothing.

"Not _another_ wizard!" somebody else exclaimed, as the woman, wide-eyed, found her feet and backed away.

"- on earth dresses like that?" A cell-phone camera flashed.

"Is that _Tony Stark?_"

Anthony ignored their audience. "Reed will be set up better for this, if we're far enough over that a version of him exists here," he said, shaking his hand so that his gauntlet disappeared and then tapping at the touchscreen of his phone. "And if he _is_, then my combination of magic and technology ought to be able to get his phone number – ha, there we go." He held the phone up to his ear and looked around, over the heads of the pedestrians, who were giving them both a wide berth. "Reed! It's Tony – yes, Stark. I'm from an alternate reality and I have a friend who needs medical assistance – could you lower the defenses so I can teleport us both in? What? No, we landed at random – _what? _No... uh – ...I'd be happy to tell you all about it in person if you'd – Eh? No, he's fine... Ah. Yes, that could be a problem. We'll need to get off the streets – of course not. Thanks." He hung up with a touch of his thumb and muttered, "Suspicious bastard."

"Who's Reed?" Steve asked, trying not to shiver, and to stay out of the way of passerby. Anthony seemed to have absolutely no concern for the way they were blocking the sidewalk.

"A friend," Anthony said distractedly, more intent upon his phone. "A good friend, really – I should be kinder, but when this all began, I wound up stuck in an alternate reality where he was a super-villain who'd blown up the White House, and I had to spend a week dodging his smart-drones until I could finish the Dimensional Tracer." The one that Steve had broken, apparently. Steve winced. "But usually, yes, a good friend." The phone _blooped_, and Anthony exclaimed, "Aha! _Shades of the Seraphim - _"

The jump this time was short, like a hiccup, but Steve stumbled anyway as reality whirled back into place around them. The nausea was still chewing at his insides.

"You didn't say your friend was _Steve_," a woman's voice reproached Anthony. Steve looked up and blinked until the room stopped tilting. They were in a lab – one just as advanced as Tony's or Bruce's, maybe even more so; it had less holograms and more enormous machines that Steve couldn't identify, but it also included what looked to be a medical centre, if the padded examination table surrounded by monitoring equipment was what he thought it was. "You said, 'He's fine'. Steve, what happened?" The woman – blonde; late thirties; wearing a lab coat over a form-fitting blue spandex suit – reached out a hand to touch him, and was repulsed again by the shield spell.

"Don't touch him," Anthony said sharply. "He absorbed at least ten Grays – he's radioactive as hell. And he's not from my reality, he's a hitchhiker."

"Are you sure about the dose?" another man joined in the conversation, and Steve nearly tripped over himself while recoiling. Since when was he this clumsy? Maybe it was whatever was wrong with his vision – the man, who was wearing the same type of getup as the woman, had his neck stretched out like... some type of snake. That couldn't be possible. Experimentally, Steve waved his hand in front of his own face, wondering if his fingers would look all stretchy, too, but they didn't.

"Not very, the spell isn't that precise."

Both of the strangers did double-takes, and then the oddly-stretched man waved Steve over to the exam table, one arm stretching out to a distance of ten feet to flick on the machines around it. Bemused, Steve sat down.

"Spell?" The woman eyed Anthony. "No... It can't be." Her voice was almost accusing. "That looks like _Strange's_ outfit."

"Yes, he does seem to wind up Sorcerer Supreme in most universes aside from mine," Anthony drawled. He did something complicated with his hands, and yellow light flared up around the entire medical bench, and then flared and faded away from Steve's skin. "There – run your tests."

"Ten Grays is a lethal dose – "

"He has a healing factor."

"Fifteen-point-three," Stretchy reported. Steve tried to crane his own neck around to see the screen the guy was looking at, but neck muscles didn't work like that. They _didn't_. So how was Stretchy seeing the screen?

"Who _are_ you?" Steve burst out, and then he flinched when they all turned to look at him again, away from their screens and machines. He badly wanted his shield, wanted some measure of protection – _something_.

"Oh," the woman paused, looking surprised again. "Susan Richards. This is my husband, Reed – we don't exist in your universe?"

Reed craned his head away from the computer screen he'd been looking at. Part of his neck stayed behind. "Hmm, several years younger than our Steve Rogers – what time is it in your universe?"

"He knew my counterpart," Anthony broke in, "He's not from the forties. You're not _that_ ubiquitous, Reed."

"Both of you shut up," Susan said, staring at Steve. "Steve, what year is it?"

He wasn't sure he should answer, but she didn't seem hostile, at least. "2012."

"What day of the week is it?"

He stared at her, at a loss.

"Monday? Tuesday?" she prompted him. But he couldn't answer. His thoughts wouldn't line up in a straight row. They felt snakey, like Reed's neck.

"High enough dose to cause rapid CNS deterioration," Reed noted quietly.

"Should it be happening that fast?" Anthony asked, sounding uncertain for the first time.

"Steve – Steve, look at me," Susan said firmly, and she moved until she stood between him and Reed. "Reed – stop stretching, you're distracting him. Tony – go be useful somewhere else."

"Sorry, dear," Reed said, and moved somewhere out of sight behind a machine, dragging Anthony with him, the two of them arguing in technobabble. "When Captain Rogers was infected with ultrapox, a burst of vita-14.5 was able to reactivate the binding compounds in the serum – "

"This was broad spectrum – he already got hit with vita-14.5, you want to irradiate him some _more?_"

Steve tried to figure out if Reed had left his feet behind, but Susan moved forward again, to the edge of the golden shimmering dome about the medical bay, and clapped her hands together to get his attention.

"Building, give us some privacy," Susan said, and humming beams of light cut down all around him, blocking everything but the medlab. It didn't seem to affect any of the monitoring machines still within, though. Some type of forcefield? Steve wondered. Susan's voice still came through clearly, but Reed's argument with Tony had been cut off. "Steve, ten Grays is a lethal dose."

"Yeah, I, uh... I heard." He shook his head. Why was it so difficult to _think?_ His gut rumbled in protest again before suddenly trying itself into knots, and he doubled over as he tried desperately not to embarrass himself.

"Building, get a nurse module in here – Steve, it's going to affect your brain functions. It's already starting. We need to know what happened while you can still think clearly. Can we trust Stark?"

"I don't know," Steve mumbled through gritted teeth, and then a robot rolled through one of the blue walls of light and unfolded itself between him and Susan, into a... port-a-potty? Steve didn't know, didn't care – its use was obvious, and he managed to transfer himself from the bed to its seat just in time. His body felt like it was trying to turn itself inside-out.

"Did he do this to you?" The reminder that she could still _hear_ him, even if she couldn't see him, made Steve flush even further – and then he wondered when he'd become flushed at all.

"No? It was an accident, he just – he showed up, I grabbed him while he was trying to teleport out, then there were quinjets and we tried going elsewhere but it was radioactive." He shivered, fighting down nausea as another wave of cramps rolled through his body. "Then he jumped us out and doused me in water for a while, and then we jumped here."

"Why here?"

"Random," Steve said, trying to think. It had been random – no, that wasn't right. Something had been broken. They had been lost? Where was he now? "SHIELD," he managed. "Call SHIELD."

The sounds of the two arguing scientists – well, arguing scientist and arguing magician – abruptly resumed, although thankfully his privacy walls didn't go away. "He's saying to call SHIELD. If he's from one of those fascist mirror-universes – "

Steve's body _ached_. He doubled over, clenching his teeth to keep from groaning – they could _hear_ him, but they couldn't see him, so he folded his hands into fists tightly enough that his short-cropped nails broke skin.

" – need samples – "

" – need _painkillers_ – "

_"Please hold out your arm,"_ his toilet asked him. A metal armrest folded itself up around and bleeped at him expectantly.

Holding out his arm meant that he had to unwrap it from around his stomach. It took a few moments for Steve to manage that, and then there were two pinpricks that barely registered as pain compared to the sensations coursing through his insides.

"...call Steve..."

Words drifted around him, but they weren't making much sense as they had been, previously. Snatches of phrases were understandable, but he was lost in his own internal misery, uncomprehending of however much time was passing. It was too hard to think.

"...transfusions..."

The armrest beeped at him unhappily. _"Increasing dose,"_ it informed him. Gradually, Steve became aware that his arm, unlike the rest of him, no longer hurt. And then the rest of him also did not hurt quite so badly. He squinted up at the blue walls. They were quite a pretty shade, the colour of open sky.

"...won't help his _brain..._"

"...what else can we..."

"...wind up a vegetable..."

"...not letting him die!"

And then, for a long time, nothing made much sense at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**THEN**

Tony's head felt like somebody had stuffed cotton balls up through his nose and into his brain. And possibly down his throat, too; as he came awake he tried to swallow, and immediately started coughing, scrunching his gummy eyes back together. Coughing felt strange; breathing felt strange – his chest was oddly... light.

His eyes jerked back open and he scrabbled at his chest; his head protested the movement at first but that was irrelevant – the arc reactor was gone. The reactor was _gone_. It had been replaced with a thick power cord reaching into the base, plugged into the wall with maybe four, five metres of slack coiled up beside the cot he was lying on.

Breath wheezed in his throat. _You don't need it,_ he tried to tell himself, but the thought never had a chance, was drowned out by _ohgodohgodohgod no bracelets either –_

"I'm sorry," said a voice – feminine, unaccented, _not_ Yinsen, not him – Romanoff. Natasha. "We had to take out the arc reactor so we wouldn't be found." She actually _looked_ sorry, too, what the hell – "We have a car battery you can use when you need more mobility, we just thought we shouldn't use it up any faster than we had to." She pointed at a clunky car battery sitting in an open duffle bag next to her chair and Tony stared at it. That explained the thin stench of gasoline that he smelled, then, and used metal overlaid with fear – his own. He looked back up at her. _Was_ it her? The lights – it had been brightly lit a moment ago, but now it wasn't, it was dim and dark and oh, god –

"Stark? That's okay – you're okay – careful – "

" – when you sit up," Yinsen told him, still not looking at him directly, only by the broken mirror he was using to shave. "I designed that with enough support that you could still breathe, walk, sit... but you are still healing, eh?"

Tony clutched at his chest and stared at him in horror, trying to remember how to breathe –

Yinsen's lips were moving, but they weren't matching the words he was _saying_. "Please cooperate. They'll kill you if you won't, and that would waste all the work I put into you."

He turned, and his hair was red, his voice light and high, feminine – "Stark?" He wasn't across the room anymore, he was holding one of Tony's hands, saying, "Breathe in, slow, through your nose – that's it – breathe out through your mouth – breathe in – there you go..."

The lights – brightened? Or maybe he moved. He was staring into the face of Natasha Romanoff now, trying to breathe according to her instructions. A beautiful face – completely lacking in make-up, at the moment, but Natasha was beautiful no matter what she was – or wasn't – wearing. Beautiful, and deadly, like all the greatest wonders of the universe.

_0A93DD3..._

In this reality just as much as his own.

"You're okay," she was repeating. He blinked, and the words started matching up with her lips. "You're safe. You're okay."

"Wha – " Tony tried, and started coughing again. She passed him a cup with a straw sticking out of it, and he took a sip. It was fortunate that it had a lid; his hands were shaking so badly that no doubt he'd have spilled it everywhere, else. The water steadied him somewhat, cleared away the lingering fog. "What's going on?"

"You're in an alternate reality."

_I got that._ "Okay," he said slowly, "Why?" Trying to dissemble to Natasha would be a losing move, but every nerve in his body was screaming at him not to trust her. He _couldn't_ trust her. He_couldn't_ – oh, god, he'd just had a full-on audio-visual hallucination, he couldn't trust _himself_. How long had it been since he'd missed his morning medication? How long had he been out? Every hallucination before had been audio-only, his sight the only thing he could rely upon – what the hell had that been? PTSD? He hadn't had a PTSD relapse in _years_ –

- hadn't had his arc reactor _missing from his chest_ in years –

"We need your help." She leaned back in the chair she was sitting on, her gaze flickering to the hole in his shirt – in his _chest_ – and back up.

"I meant why the arc reactor."

"It's the same reason." The compassion, the warmth, was gone from her voice now; it had probably never really been there at all. "We have an enemy. It can detect the energy of your arc reactor. We need you to help us bring it down, and you can't do that if it finds and kills you first."

_That _sounded promising. Tony swung his feet over the edge of the cot to face her. "It didn't occur to you to _ask_ first?" he said acidly. He couldn't help it; he felt keenly the lack of his armour, the lack of his reactor, the lack of – _everything_.

"We were on the clock, and we didn't know how long it would take you to agree. We thought it would be easier this way – for all involved." Goddamnit, her eyes were still crinkled, slightly, with concern – he didn't need that from her. Didn't _want _that from her, not when it was as fake as Justin Hammer's degree in electrical engineering –

"I meant _before_ you grabbed me," he snapped.

SHIELD had an enemy that it needed killing, and they'd kidnapped him so that he could build them weapons. _Like hell_.

"Our dimensional technology isn't advanced enough," she said, leaning forward, projecting – mildly – sincerity. He didn't believe it anymore than he would have had she been laying it on with a shovel. "Sending a message is a great deal more difficult than observing from a distance – or so Dr. Banner tells us," she quirked her lips in... deference? What? "We weren't even sure that getting you here would work. And we had to move, immediately – the power we pulled to run the portal wasn't going to go unmissed, even if you hadn't had an arc reactor."

"You mean there's no way back."

"No, there is," she shook her head, denying it immediately. "The machine components still exist – they've been evacuated to different locations, but we didn't leave them behind. Once we no longer have to worry about getting killed while putting it together and powering it up, we can send you home at your leisure."

"Nice caveat."

"Tony," and oh, god, there was too much _sympathy_ in her voice, mixed up in all that frustration. She didn't get to do that – she didn't get to play him like that, and it was a good thing she didn't touch him or he'd have tried to break her hand. Tried and _failed_, but still. "None of us _wanted _this. This wasn't our first choice – we're _desperate. _We _need_ you," and there was promise in there that he hadn't heard in so long, so very long – promise that made his stomach roil. How _dare_ she think he'd stoop to that, trading weapons for sex?

Or was that what he was like, in this universe?

Of course, it was fucking _Natasha_, so she realized her error immediately and sat back, easing down the seduction, going back to business-like. "Dr. Banner searched across a thousand alternate realities to find a version of you that could help us."

"And that is...?" Tony invited. A thousand universes was an infinitesimal fraction of their cluster – but there were still patterns that could be statistically significant over such a small sample. And too -_he_ was here; his alternate self wasn't. So – no, that was _post hoc ergo propter hoc_, logical fallacy, the other him wasn't _necessarily_ dead, just... not what SHIELD wanted. Did that mean she expected him to be less, or more?

She met his eyes squarely. "One who hasn't had his own AI turn on him."

JARVIS. A thousand worlds, a thousand differences – a thousand times JARVIS had grown up and had the chance to become a different person. Had Tony failed so badly in all of them? Or was this just statistics, still, inevitable?

"Explain," he demanded.

She bent over, then, giving Tony a very nice look down the front of her shirt, apparently unwittingly – yeah, right – and picked up the cord of the battery, which would have instantly killed an erection anyway. "It'll be easier to show you," she said, offering it to him.

His fingers fumbled at the connections. A week, he'd put up with this before, but he'd never forgotten – like riding a bike, except fall off and instead of skinned knees he'd get a torn aorta. He unplugged himself from the wall and switched it for the battery so swiftly the magnetic field barely had time to flicker; it was made easier by how they included some slack on the plug to the base, so he didn't have to try sticking his hands into his own chest. Or, god forbid, ask Natasha to do it.

The shoulder-strap on the duffle was even padded. How nice of them. He picked it up as he stood, feeling the weight of it settle against his side like a threat: _drop me, you're dead_.

"Lead the way."

They weren't in an underground base. They were in an apartment complex.

They took an elevator down to the underground parking. There were small, but noticeable cameras in the hallway – and in the elevator – and in the parking garage.

"The cameras in this building aren't ours, but we leave them alone – interfering with them would draw... dangerous attention," Natasha said, ushering him into the passenger side of a two-year-old Toyota. Plebian. He shuddered, and settled the duffle carrying the car battery more firmly on his lap. At least it wasn't a _minivan_, which had been what the first button on her keyfob unlocked, before he'd given her a flat, level look, and declined. The way that she'd smirked at him had made him wonder if she'd just been teasing him, or if it had been some sort of test. "There are arrest notices out for all of us, of course, but ULTRON doesn't have the resources to run facial recognition checks on every piece of data it collects – not yet."

"ULTRON?" Tony asked, his face turned out the window as she steered the car toward the exit. The garage door rose slowly, creaking enough that he could hear it even inside the car. Watching the streets would be more useful for information-gathering than looking at her; he'd never see anything on her face but what she wanted to see.

"Our enemy. The AI."

"Built by yours truly, I presume."

"You presume correctly. Your counterpart used him as a general aid, a butler, and also to help run his suit of powered flying armour. Do you have one of your own?"

"What, my own AI or my own suit?"

"Suit. Dr. Banner confirmed that you had your own AI – JARVIS, wasn't it?"

Really? Yet they hadn't noticed the workshop's wall of armours?

- could he really have been lucky enough for his precautions against spying to have worked? When had he last talked to JARVIS outside of that - _Steve_, of course. Steve had dragged him out of his workshop last week, swearing he needed to see the sun at least once in a blue moon, and Tony had been chatting to JARVIS half the time.

This was all supposition -

"And you didn't notice the suits?" he challenged, turning away from the window to cock an eyebrow at her.

She took her eyes off the road to give him a quick glance. "Dr. Banner _also_ mentioned you have some interesting security measures on your tower. We're hoping you can work up a virus to take out ULTRON quickly. But if it takes you longer, I know he'd like to speak with you regarding those measures. Right now our main defence is staying on the move."

At every stop-light, cameras lined the street poles; no alley or entrance-way went unwatched. Well, how very... London. Less like London was how the street lights themselves weren't functioning; occasionally, they had been taped over, and stop-signs had been nailed to the posts in their stead. Apparently, this was sufficient; they were the only moving vehicle on the block. Only half the street was actually clear; the rest was taken up by pavilions and tents, temporary houses – refugee camps in the middle of a North American city. _Which_ city, he wasn't sure; something about the small downtown core made him think mid-west, flyover states, but he couldn't really be sure.

"Electricity and gas are at all-time premiums," Natasha commented, "and ULTRON takes its cut first, of course."

"But we won't be noticed driving around?"

"The car itself has a few tricks to mask us," she shrugged. "So long as we don't step outside it, no one will flag us for the cameras – although we'll need to move in a few days anyway, as a precaution. But you need to be convinced first." She gave him a considering look. "If you're going to go outside, though, you'll need a disguise. Losing the beard would be a good start."

"Leave my beard alone," Tony snapped back, half-heartedly. It was difficult to joke, watching the bustle of humanity around him – all of them wearing an air of poverty that he'd never thought to see in _America_, christ. Not outside of natural disasters – but this felt like _long term_ misery, a way of life far more than a temporary displacement. "Where're the refugees from?"

"Here? Primarily the west coast. When ULTRON announced its control eight months ago, everyone resisted. But it was already too late at that point – it had managed to obtain access to long-range nuclear warheads. It took out its most immediate threats and crushed any further attempt at overt resistance. Coastlines, major population centres... they're no longer healthy places to be."

"Why?"

"The nuclear fallout will take several centuries to – "

Tony turned to stare at her. "Are you _kidding me?_ You're kidding me, right? You think I – you think genius _weapons designer_, Tony Stark, Merchant of fucking Death – " his jaw worked, but he was having difficulty expressing his incredulity.

"Dr. Banner reported that Stark Industries is an energy company in your world," Natasha said easily. She gave him a small smile. "It's another reason we weren't certain about the suit."

He glowered at her. "Do you ever say anything straight up, without having a hidden motive?"

"Would you trust what I said if I did?"

Fair point, he had to admit. If not aloud. But this was more sparring than any conversation he'd had with her counterpart back in the Tower, back _home_ – granted, not that he saw much of her, since she rarely visited his lab and he rarely left. So. What was he – what had he been, in this universe? Would she tell him, if he asked?

She seemed to take silence as admission. "ULTRON claims that it's because we're too flawed as a species to govern ourselves properly, so we don't deserve the opportunity to do so. Or were you asking why it left anyone alive?"

"That'd be nice to know, too."

"As far as we can tell? Because it can't construct suits fast enough – not yet." She glanced at him. "It uses the Iron Man armours as enforcement and labour, but it's only got a couple hundred of them. We take them out, and their construction facilities, when we can... but that's not enough. Especially not when it has a substantial part of the world's surviving population building it fabrication facilities. We've reached a critical threshold. Once some of the newest factories come online, ULTRON will be able to churn out processing units faster than ever before."

"And once that happens... you've got an enemy that can watch you anywhere, can outthink you, can outplay you, no matter what the game is," Tony finished quietly, staring out the window.

Yeah, he knew how that felt. The knowledge that this world's spies had been thwarted by his counter-measures felt like a brief flicker of hope, too easily doused by the knowledge that Asgard would be far ahead of them.

"That's why we need you," Natasha said. "You built an AI like this. You can take it apart." She smiled, briefly. "Stark liked to say that it was always easier to destroy than to create." _Stark_.

Maybe he didn't need to ask. If he'd created a killer AI...

_Not my world. Not my problem. I_ _'_ _ve got bigger fish to fry._

But no facilities to do it here, and no way back without SHIELD. Unless SHIELD – Natasha – was lying, as they did.

"The key is only destroying what you want to destroy, and not everything around it," Tony murmured. His ever-present problem, these last few months. "Yeah, yeah – so what happened to _him_, then?"

"He was in the suit when ULTRON announced its intentions to the world," she said quietly. "He tried an override command – or at least, that's what we think it was supposed to be. It didn't work, and the suit crushed him before he could try anything else. Then it took out the Helicarrier."

Well, nice to know he _could_. Not that he'd had much doubt about it. There was a reason Nick's flying fortress got a full escort despite the considerable guns it boasted – the thing was a stupidly vulnerable target.

Damn it. If he went missing for longer than a few days, Fury was going to go trekking through all his stuff, getting his sticky fingerprints all over it. He could only hope that they tripped the 'missing or dead' file, first – the Tower might have a hope of being shielded, enough to ward off _human_ extradimensional spying at least, but SHIELD – hah – certainly didn't. No. He needed to fix this situation quickly, and get home, and return to what _mattered_.

"What about SHIELD, then?" he asked. He needed more information. "You can't tell me Fury didn't have a dozen contingency plans for this ever since he found out I _had_ an AI. Or did I manage to keep that from him in this world?" He needed a damn computer, he needed to be able to see ULTRON's code – he needed his _lab_, an ad-hoc setup in some random apartment block wasn't going to cut it. This was – this AI was _his_. He needed to make sure –

_Know that _you_ did this._

- that it hadn't been his fault.

_Couldn__'__t be. It__'__s not my world._

Right?

"Fury'd died a year before. There was an alien invasion – Dr. Banner said you'd likely had the same thing happen, with the Chitauri – "

"Yeah." A year before? So that meant this timeline was off by fourteen months – unless there were yet more changes he hadn't noticed. Their him had never gotten out of the weapons division, apparently – that was a pretty big change.

" – but it seems you were luckier than us. Your New York is still standing."

Luckier? Right. Twelve million New Yorkers had lived.

Countless others had died. Well, not countless, _technically_. He'd made a pretty good go of counting it a couple of months ago. Although since he'd broken out the scotch at the same time as he'd broken out the Knuth up-arrows, when his power towers had started to get a bit unwieldy, the end result was that he didn't _remember_ the end result, just Steve picking him up off the floor the next morning.

Compared to that, he supposed those twelve million New Yorkers _were_ pretty lucky.

Was that how New York had died here? Without Fury, had that bomb gotten through unchecked?

"Wouldn't have thought anything could kill Fury," his mouth ran on autopilot. "Figured he'd just remove his eye-patch and reveal the laser defense system beneath."

"There was a traitor in our organization," Natasha said evenly. He glanced over and saw that her knuckles were white around the steering wheel. Huh. True emotion, or more manipulation? Oh, who was he kidding. "Clint Barton. He killed the Director before anyone knew he'd turned. Dr. Banner reported that he survived in your world. You might want to look into his loyalties a bit more carefully when you get back home."

He turned to look out the window, automatically trying to hide his reaction and knowing that she'd see it anyway – but that didn't matter; he had cover. A teammate accused of treachery was disquieting, right?

Clint wasn't a traitor – he'd spent too much of the last six months proving that. Hell, Tony wouldn't have let him in the Tower if his brainscans had still shown the same abnormalities that Selvig's had – and bless JARVIS, anyway; he might not have been able to keep Loki's crew out, but he could provide some grade A+ info about how Loki's shit worked. But if SHIELD didn't know that – if Clint had headshot Fury in this world, had killed the only surviving witness to the mind-control –

Should he tell her? Surely, _Natasha_ deserved to know if –

He could be wrong. Clint could have _actually_ been a traitor in this reality. Didn't that make just as much sense as one of his own AIs going Skynet?

And _Dr_. Banner, _Dr._ Banner – why was she using his title so constantly? Even if they weren't on good terms, it seemed – _strange_. Natasha could be weirdly formal about some things, but she used conversational shortcuts just as much as anybody else – of course she did, otherwise she'd stand out. If _this_ Natasha had the same job, then wouldn't it make sense she'd have the same habit? So what was going on there?

SHIELD was afraid of Bruce Banner – well, that seemed terribly likely for any world. But Bruce wasn't _here_.

He turned to glower out the window again. On the street everyone was dressed warmly - he wondered how cold it was outside. The parking garage had been frigid, although the apartment was warm enough – how did SHIELD manage to grab such a place and still stay off the radar?

"So where is the esteemed Dr. Banner, anyway?" he asked instead. The view outside his window was starting to become disquieting all on its own. There should have been more _cars_.

"I don't know," she said, and he almost believed her. "Once he managed to make the portal work, we all split up. It's impossible to draw on that much power without attracting ULTRON's attention. We stay in cells."

"Lessons learnt from the War on Terror. Hah. What about Rogers?" After all this time, it felt unnatural to call Steve by his last name – but if he had weak points, it was stupid to just give them away –

"He's dead."

_Damn it._

"Pepper?" he demanded.

"Stark – Tony," she amended, and what was _that_ about? He narrowed his eyes at her. Trying to keep track of all her manipulations was taxing even his brain. "These aren't _your_ people. They're not – we're depending on you, we're _all_ depending on you, but we aren't the people you know. We're not your responsibility." The car pulled to a halt at a stop-sign, and she took advantage of the pause to turn to face him fully. "The only thing this world needs from you is a way to get rid of ULTRON."

_After that, we're better off without you_.

No. No – that was the paranoia speaking, filling in words that she hadn't said. It _had_ to be.

He couldn't make himself unthink it.

Fuck, at least it wasn't the radio saying it to him. That had been... exceptionally creepy.

"Pepper," he forced himself to say.

"I don't know." Natasha accelerated the car again, rolling through the intersection – two four-lane, one-way streets, and the only other cars on them were parked, and most of _those_ were sagging low on tires long since gone flat. "If it would convince you faster to help us, then I'll try to find out."

"Yeah, do that. Rhodey, too," he said. His voice sounded flat, toneless to his own ears. If she was dead – but she wasn't the woman he knew. Steve wouldn't be the man he knew. Rhodey wouldn't be the man he knew. None of them –

An infinite number of universes were out there. In an infinite number of worlds an infinite number of Peppers were being tortured to death by his enemies, by her enemies; an infinite number of Rhodeys were shot out of the sky and screamed as they fell, suit or plane burning around them, the ground's embrace a mercy; an infinite number of Steves were –

He shook his head, shuddered. He couldn't take responsibility for them. He couldn't. He'd go insane, he'd accomplish nothing and save no one at all. No, he had two responsibilities: to his own world, and to the cluster of universes that he'd so epically fucked over.

And maybe to this one, now that he was here, and could fuck things up here as well. Shit.

"James Rhodes was piloting the War Machine armour when nukes were launched at D.C.," Natasha said. "He managed to divert two. The third killed him."

_Shit._

"So what did you want to show me out here?" he asked finally, after the silence stretched to breaking point. They'd been driving aimlessly for the length of the conversation, looping back and around and making enough left turns that they'd not actually gone any more than a few blocks south from their starting point.

"This," she said, and took a right, ending up on a street bordering a city park. Trees surrounded a field, keeping it separated from the sidewalk, but they'd all lost their leaves long since, and there was no snow covering their branches to further obscure the view. One building, also cornering it, had a large mural down the side, showing a Mercator map of the world in bright blues and greens. The coasts of North America were covered in black paint, with more splotches reaching inward –Japan was entirely gone – the coasts of China – northern India – Europe, oh god, Europe was nothing _but_ black –

There were metre-high black numbers beneath the map, each painted on a white square. The squares – and numbers – of the lower digits, all zeros, were faded, weathered, as though they'd been up there for months; the larger digits were newer, fresher. As they slowed to a stop outside the building, a man on a stepladder was applying a thick coat of white paint to the ten-thousands digit, covering over the black _2_.

_4,459,820,000_

Below, the wall was covered in pictures, notes, flowers. Another worker swept articles that had fallen off the wall into a trash bin, keeping it tidy.

"They keep an updated death toll beside the memorial. ULTRON pays for it. It wants them to know."

Christ.

"We couldn't save them," Natasha said, and her voice was rough, low, in a way that he'd never heard her speak. "All we can do is avenge them."

Tony squeezed his eyes shut – and then had to open them, rapidly, as the memory of Asgard's burning towers painted itself across his mind's eye. But that left him looking at that awful map – as bad as Bruce's damned fallout map, making a mockery of the decision Tony had made – so many lives lost to buy a mere twelve million in return –

No.

Stop.

_Think_. He had to stop feeling sorry for himself – there wasn't any scotch to get wasted on here, and that was – well, that would be a waste of valuable time anyway. He needed to approach this analytically. They wanted vengeance – and he could provide that. But they also had something he needed, something they'd had an additional fourteen months to work on: a way to travel to an alternate reality.

The GRC's experiments were close, _so close_ to breaching that barrier, but even after that, it would be another long slog to create a portal that could reach to central Asgard. Whatever solution this world's Bruce had come up with might not be able to get him that far, but hell, it couldn't put him further behind. And it might just be the breakthrough he'd been searching for.

_If you can trust them not to give you directions to the nearest black hole instead,_ a small, nasty voice reminded him.

Tony noted its presence, and squashed it. How long _had_ it been since he'd missed his medication? He should have taken it at seven. How long had it been since then?

If he was stuck here – he would have to tell them. There was no way he could obtain it on his own, not here. But if he told them – a feeling not so much like fear as like resignation crawled up over his skin, made his breathing pick up again.

_If you know the feeling is irrational, and can avoid giving in to it..._ he remembered Lykos' advice, as he'd trained himself to do, whenever his skin started to feel... unusual.

But he didn't know it was irrational. He didn't. This was SHIELD – this was Natasha Romanoff, _Black Widow_, who'd spied on him and betrayed him and stabbed him in the neck to save his life. This was Natasha of another world, who'd ripped out his arc reactor to keep him from being tracked down by an AI that had murdered four and a half billion people –

He caught sight of his reflection, faint in the passenger-side window, and glared at it.

"Tony," said Steve, "if you don't get a grip, you're going to get somebody killed."

He pushed the palms of his hands against his eyes and thought, as strongly as he could, _Shut up, Steve._ Starbursts of light danced over his vision, obscuring the memory of Asgard's ruin.

_You__'__re repeating yourself._

It was the same thing Steve had said when Tony had refused to tell Bruce, refused to tell Pepper, refused to tell Stevie-the-Younger; the same thing he'd said when Tony had tracked down Lu and Parks; the same thing he'd said when Tony had sought out to Lykos' in secret – and he'd been wrong every time. Nobody had died yet – but if Heimdall saw, if _Loki_ saw –

_4,459,820,000_

Tony put his hands down and spoke before he could think better of it, his words tripping over themselves in his haste. "If I do this, I have two conditions."

"Name them," Natasha said instantly.

"First, you give me access to all data about the inter-reality portal. I want to know exactly how the hell you did it. I am not getting fucking _stuck_ here because somebody gets uncovered and blown to hell or – " he cut himself off. He was rambling, and rambling was a bad way to sell a lie – even if it was covered in truth.

"I'll request the files be sent when I check in this evening," she agreed.

"And second – " his throat seized up, choking around the thought of revealing weakness. He coughed; overcame it. "I need a daily prescription for tanaxa – AKA setaquil, AKA chlorotanax. 200mg."

"What condition is it for?"

He grinned at her. Or, well, he bared his teeth, anyway. "Paranoid schizophrenia. Tanaxa shuts down the symptoms."

"Mostly," noted Steve. He sounded disapproving again.

Natasha nodded. Slowly. Calmly. _Hah_. "How long can you go without a dose before you start experiencing symptoms again?"

"A week or two." If the 'professional' opinion of a disgraced psychiatrist stripped of his medical licence could be trusted.

"We'll get it ASAP," she said briskly, and pulled the car out of park.

They didn't go straight back to the apartment complex. Instead, Natasha pulled them over to the side of the road beside another building, one that had, by the few remaining signs, once housed a medical centre. There were bars across all of the windows, now, including two that were missing their glass and had plastic tarps covering them instead; the outlines of the metal grating showed up when the wind pushed the tarps inward.

There were other cars parked along the street, but they were all in such disrepair that even with the coat of dirt on the outside of this one, it simply being in working condition made it stand out greatly. Natasha removed the keys and pocketed them, then turned to grab a small bag from the back.

The process that followed was fascinating. She applied contacts, wig, pads, and glue – to fool any facial recognition programs, of course – and a thorough coating of makeup that, by the time she was done, managed to not look like make-up at all. "That's impressive," he commented as she finished up, occasionally playing hands for her and handing her a brush. "And scary, but you knew that."

"Well, it's not exactly an invisibility cloak, but I don't think a pharmacist would like talking to thin air." She gave him a small, polite smile, and a part of his brain ran off to run calculations on the probability of how much of it was faked. "Please keep any thieves from stealing the car."

"Yes ma'am," he agreed easily, sarcastically. The possibility that _he_ might steal the car went unspoken. Keys or no keys, he was Tony Stark. But, just as much, this was a SHIELD vehicle, and if it had equipment to fool ULTRON's monitoring systems then no doubt it was wired up with a dozen different ways for _SHIELD _to keep tabs on the occupants. If he had enough time... but how long would it take her to go ask a pharmacist for medication (or, more likely, break in and steal it)? Not that long.

She climbed out and shut the door firmly behind her. Tony watched her leave, and let his eyes drift upward. Cameras all along the street, even more so than along others – but of course, if this place still functioned as a medical centre, then it would be an attractive target. If he left... _if SHIELD hadn't installed a tracker in the battery, or in the casing itself..._

_Idiot_, he told himself firmly, and shoved the thought away. He'd already committed, already made up his mind. The doubts were just more paranoia – no doubt justified paranoia, when it came to trackers, but no matter what SHIELD might do...

_4,459,820,000_

The number was burned into his memory.

But he couldn't sit still and ignore _all_ such doubts. That would just be stupid. Instead, as soon Natasha had vanished inside, Tony unclipped his seatbelt and began quickly, methodically, searching the car. Glove compartment – licensing and registration which was completely out of date. Flashlight – with batteries. But, oh, it said _HammerTech_ on the side. Why the military continued to buy even the most basic of equipment from that jumped up – but. Fuck. Beggars, choosers, and the day he couldn't fix even _Hammer_'s tech was the day he gave up and jumped off the Tower without bracelets. Tony shoved it into his duffle and used the bag to hide his hands as he pulled the batteries out. Then he covertly pocketed them, leaving the flashlight itself to stay in the duffle. Never a bad idea to have a small, portable power-source. Beneath the passenger seat, a first aid kit; he pilfered it for scissors and gauze. Beneath the front seat – nothing. Nothing in the doors – aside from some cloaking tech. He frowned over it for a few minutes; it wasn't the same approach he'd taken with his anti-Asgardian cloaking tech, nor anywhere as good, but he could see how worked... and more importantly, how he might apply it to his own ends. Still – something to be left for later.

In the backseat – Natasha's disguise kit, a more extensive first-aid kit, and several extra tanks of gasoline secured over what had previously been the back seat, extending into the trunk. He considered siphoning off enough to make a Molotov cocktail, or to use as fuel for something later – there were water bottles in the second first-aid kit – but the smell would make it too obvious that he had it, and where would that leave him? The car had to be bugged, and no doubt Natasha would find out about his bout of kleptomania sooner or later, but he didn't think she'd be willing to overlook him walking around like an unlit matchstick.

He checked the roof – more cloaking technology; he wished he could have pried out a couple of components, but it was clearly all interlinked – and pulled up the carpet hiding the pseudo-backseat: jackpot. Guns. _Lots_ of guns, as the line went – guns, and something that looked like a rocket launcher, heavily modified... his eyes narrowed as his fingers found the SI logo etched into the side. This wasn't one of his designs – coincidence, or had his counterpart here still been building weapons?

Movement, out of the corner of his eye; the door of the building opened and Natasha stepped out. He shoved the carpet back down, not bothering to grab any of the weapons; there was no way SHIELD (or Natasha) would fail to notice one of those gone missing. And, knowing SHIELD (and Natasha), they were probably all bugged, too. He pulled himself back into his seat and busied himself with the registration again – she would expect him to have gone snooping.

"What date is it here?" he asked as she opened the door and climbed into the driver's seat.

"January 4th, 2015."

"Huh," he mumbled, staring at the documents. Yup, fourteen months ahead, then. Then he turned to her. "What, you want cash first? Pretty sure my credit cards won't work here, but there are other currencies I could provide." The leer was half-hearted, but – well, obligatory.

"They didn't have any," Natasha said evenly, turning the key. Despite the lack of traffic on the road, she still made normal use of her signal lights pulling out of park – such a model driver. Or was it that the roads were now watched by so many cameras? "I wasn't sure they would, but it was worth a try," she explained after a moment, still completely nonchalant. It wasn't the best reassurance tactic that she'd ever adopted, although, if Tony had to be fair, he might have admitted that there wasn't much she _could_ have done to reassure him. She was a rather non-reassuring person, by both nature and trade. "It's been... hard. A lot of things are difficult to come by, now."

"So?" He was drumming his fingers against the documentation, he noticed. A tell. Not one that he cared to hide – _let_ her know that he was fucking worried about this, it wasn't like he could hide it from her.

"So, SHIELD will move it to a first-priority status supply run."

"If there's any to find."

"There are more caches than you might think." She shrugged. "If not, Dr. Banner no doubt could figure out how to synthesize some."

He put the documents back in the glove compartment, and then pinched the bridge of his nose. His sinuses itched, warning of a headache coming on – probably from the sedative she'd used on him fucking up his system. He didn't get headaches anymore, not without outside help, booze or drugs or whacking his head on the underside of the armour chassis. "I think you underestimate modern pharmacy." Tanaxa only _controlled_ the symptoms, and just barely – and Lykos still thought that was a tremendous result, much better than he could have expected, and – shit. He'd said withdrawal would take a week or two, not to think that he didn't need the meds anymore if he stopped and nothing happened right away – like Tony was an idiot who couldn't figure out how modern medicine worked – that week would have to be enough. It'd have to be.

More than a week, and he might start spilling secrets he couldn't afford to lose.

"You got a pen?" he snapped his fingers at her, unthinking, then grimaced when she raised an eyebrow at him – but she reached into her handbag and pulled several out. He grabbed one, and the documentation from the glove compartment, flipping through it until he found a spare envelope with enough empty space to write on. "Fine. I have a shopping list for you. That shit back at the apartment is ancient – "

"It's from the same raid we got Dr. Banner's equipment from, and he managed to build a portal to get you here."

" – which is not to be unexpected, given you're apparently living in medieval times, here," he scribbled down specifications, trying to avoid giving product names except as examples, although it would have been so much quicker. "What, you think cracking a brain is easier than breaking open the universe?"

"Yes."

Oh. There was _that_ note in her voice, the same one that Clint got sometimes.

"Human brain, maybe," he scoffed derisively. "We're talking about a program that's spread across the world – can't be any less or you'd be able to root him out. And you want me to simulate it with an Intel quad-core? Please. No wonder you need me. I want – I can't believe I'm saying this," he shook his head, "but I want you to take a note from USAF's style. Playstations. X-boxes. I don't care, it's the RAM I need. You've got me a dummy version of his program?"

"Yes." This time, she just sounded like she was humouring him. At least that was normal, if... annoying.

"Bet you fifty that it's not good enough," he said, chewing on the end of the pen for a moment. He grimaced, and pulled it from his mouth. _That_ was why he did everything on computer, why he didn't have spare pens lying around – it tasted disgusting, and he had to resist the urge to roll down the window and spit until he was sure all the germs on it were gone from his mouth. The ten-second rule was a myth. Damn it. That had gone in his mouth, _ew_, he was a moron, he was a –

- _what's the likelihood that they know anything about magic? Bruce had enough for the portal. Okay. So, check that – they're an entire year ahead. But if _ULTRON _doesn't know... it took me three months to spot the flaws in it, after all –_

Three months of _wasted_ work, _god fucking damn it –_

He could feel Natasha's eyes on him – a quick glance, only; of course, she was driving. They were nearing the apartment complex, and she reached up to press a button that opened the parkade's garage door.

"Or maybe there's another way around it," he murmured. The urge to scribble down notes, runes, made his fingers itch – but no, he couldn't. He needed to know what was known of Asgardian magic, first. Needed to know how much he'd be giving away. If the portal method pointed to advanced knowledge, then this might not work; but if it _didn't_... if it _didn't_, he wouldn't have to develop a tailored virus, wouldn't have to run checks against an AI that had deconstructed its own Skynet Protocol, wouldn't have to spend a multitude of hours getting familiar with ULTRON's code. He could just type out the virus from memory... no, not straight from memory; this was not something he wanted in SHIELD's hands, _any_ SHIELD's hands. He'd have to hide it, obscure it – but, still, that would take less time.

He could be home within the week.

* * *

**NOW**

For the third time that week, Steve woke up with no idea where he was.

There was an IV sticking into his left arm, another monitor on his finger, and several catheters stuck in far more uncomfortable places. A blanket had been pulled up to half-way up his chest, but the air temperature was warm enough that it was almost unnecessary – except that, as he realized a moment later, he was thoroughly undressed without it. Capped off with the regular beeping of a heart monitor and the faint smell of antiseptic, it didn't take much effort to come to the conclusion that he was in a medical facility. The disturbing part was that he was in five-point restraints – soft restraints, but when he tried testing them, they didn't break.

Good guys? Bad guys? Nazis? Aliens? Steve opened his eyes. The ceiling above him was bright with lights, making him squint, and he was surrounded by far more machines than just the heart monitor. The lights seemed... fuzzy at the edges, somehow – less than perfectly clear. He tugged at the restraints again, his limbs feeling oddly heavy – yet at the same time, lighter than normal. Was that possible? A third go at the restraints proved equally futile, but reminded him of the IV in his arm.

IV.

Oh, right.

Drugs.

"You're awake," said a blonde woman in a lab coat, coming around to the side of his bed. She _seemed_ familiar, but he couldn't place her. "How do you feel?"

Steve considered this. "Groggy," he settled on. "Why am I...?" he tugged a hand against its restraint in elaboration.

"You were pretty out of it for a while," she explained, but made no move to release him. "We were worried you might hurt yourself. Do you remember what happened?"

He sorted through fuzzy memories. Grief... the funeral... Shenzhen... and something about a dragon? He looked at her helplessly.

"Can you tell me your name?"

"Captain Steve Rogers, US Army, 549 – " he broke off and shook his head, amended, "_Former_ Captain. Retired."

"Well, that's an improvement, at least," the woman smiled, and noted something down on her tablet. "It was pretty touch and go for a while. It was a good thing Tony brought you here – anywhere else wouldn't have had our equipment."

He stared at her.

_Tony brought you here._

"Tony's dead," Steve said blankly.

She turned to look at him, her mouth forming a small 'o' of surprise, quickly morphing to understanding. "Steve – "

"He blew his own head off," Steve bit out, suddenly furious at her. "You know that – you have to know that," if she was with SHIELD – if she was with _anyone_. The whole damn world knew it, thanks to Loki. "What's going on, really?" He struggled to try to sit up. It was harder than it should have been, even accounting for the restraints. "Get me out of these things!"

"Steve, calm down," she told him, her tone perfectly pitched for command, but somehow that just made him angrier. But more anger wasn't helping with the restraints. "The situation is complicated – you've been sick – "

"Steve?" said another voice, suddenly, and Steve froze.

Tony was standing in the doorway, holding a half-eaten burrito, and wearing the most ridiculous getup Steve had ever seen – and he'd worked in showbiz. There were bags under his eyes, as though he hadn't slept for days, and –

A memory. Freezing cold water, conjured with words and gestures – a flash of light, an explanation...

"Hoary hosts – I _told _you to twig me the next time he woke up – "

"You're supposed to be sleeping, before you do something stupid again like _summoning a demon –_"

"He was fucking _crying_ when I ran across him," Tony barked.

Embarrassment rose up to keep his anger company.

"Enough," Steve said, equally sharp. "I – I remember now. I'm fine."

They both turned to look at him incredulously.

"I mean, other than the..." he sighed. Anger drained away, and along with it, strength; his limbs just felt heavy, now. He wanted to go back to sleep, curl up into a ball under the covers and – he shook himself all over, eliciting another pair of concerned looks, which he answered with a glower. Anger was good; anger would keep him going. The man standing before him wasn't Tony Stark – not _his_ Tony Stark – but if Steve's foggy memories were true, then Tony wasn't dead, either.

Steve had to find him. And then throttle the life out of him, but that could wait until they were both home safe.

"Can I please get out of these restraints?" he asked plaintively.

_"Libere,_" said Anthony, flicking his fingers. The restraints came free with the sound of Velcro ripping, and Steve sat up – carefully. There were still catheters in uncomfortable places. The movement made his head swirl, but he was more concerned with the restraints. Velcro? He should have been able to break _that_. Was it the drugs? He reached for the IV in his arm –

"_That_ stays," Susan said, crossing her arms over her chest – but she had one hand ready, in a way that seemed reminiscent of Anthony's gestures. Steve eyed her. She was dressed like a... well, okay, the leotard was a bit strange for a scientist, but it wasn't wearing anything as ridiculous as Anthony or an Asgardian. "You're still a long ways away from 'fine', Steve."

The way she said his name – with familiarity – rankled. It was _strange_. He didn't know her. It reminded him of reporters, politicians, who called him by his first name so that they could pretend they were friends. What was _she_ after?

"_That_ I will agree with you on, Sue," Anthony said, stifling a yawn. Susan hooked her foot around the base of a rolling chair and pushed it over to him; he sat down, hard, and blinked owlishly, like he hadn't meant to do so.

"What's in the IV?" Steve asked.

"Painkillers, Protein M, and a bucket of antimicrobials to boost your system while the serum renormalizes," Susan listed off. "At the rate you're improving, you might no longer need those, but there's no sense taking chances. It's why you're in a clean zone." She poked the air in front of her, between them both, and blue ripples spread out in the air like magic – or, Steve realized, like sufficiently advanced technology. "The force-field is keeping any germs out until you can fend them off yourself."

"So I'm stuck in here," Steve realized. Suddenly, it was hard not to see the pretty blue ripples as prison bars. Could he get out? Something about the way she stood – it was the way SHIELD agents stood. Not Clint or Natasha – they had their own idiosyncrasies – but... _ready._ If he was going to try to escape, he shouldn't do it while she was watching.

"For anywhere between a few more hours to a few more days," Susan confirmed. Her gaze softened. "You almost died. We weren't certain until a few hours ago that you'd pull through."

A soft snore punctuated the end of her sentence, and they both turned to look at Anthony. He'd managed to fall asleep in the rolling chair, limbs slack, his head hanging over the backrest.

"He hasn't slept since you arrived," Susan said, and there was a world of information in her tone, if only Steve could concentrate enough to parse it. "I think he felt guilty."

She nudged the chair with her foot, and Anthony startled awake, blinking rapidly. "What? I'm up," he said automatically, and it was the exact same way that Tony would claim to be paying attention. Steve's throat felt tight, an ache that the drugs – as good as they were – couldn't lessen.

"You'll get a crick in your neck if you sleep like that," said Susan, in a matter-of-fact way that made Steve wonder if she was a parent. "Look – you can have your very own bed, right there." She pointed to the next berth over – Steve barely recognized it as another medical bay, although it was stripped of all the equipment that his own contained – and shooed him toward it, telling Steve at the same time, "The drugs will probably make you pretty dizzy. You should sleep some more, too – you've had a rough couple of days."

He didn't know what was going on, and he was locked up behind a force-field. Should he protest again? But if he agreed to sleep, then she might leave, and he might have a chance to escape, and figure out what was going on by himself. "Okay," Steve said, and yawned – although the latter wasn't intentional. He lay back down, pulling the blanket up higher this time, and waited for her to finished checking the machines.

But by the time she was done, he'd already fallen back asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**THEN**

"_THEY'RE TRAITORS AND LIARS,_" AC/DC screamed at Tony. _"KILL THEM FIRST OR THEY'LL DROWN YOU IN BLOOD._"

Those were... not the words to _Thunderstruck_. Tony yanked the headphones off and scrubbed at his face, then glanced at the clock on the computer. 2139 – which meant it had been eight hours since he'd last eaten. Two and a half days since he'd taken his last dose of medication – at the inside. 15,678 lines of code written in 611 modules, densely packed enough that even if Bruce ignored all of the seemingly helpful but subtly misleading comments, he'd be going in circles. Progress on dismantling Banner's work to figure out how he'd generated the portal: well, he'd ascertained that the Asgardian rune-work was mostly superficial, which meant that the _virus_ should work, even if he had no clue how the _portal_ did.

Great.

"You should get some sleep," Natasha said from over in her corner, where she'd sat for the last two days, watching him. He had the vague idea she'd been saying something like it for the past few hours, but he couldn't be sure. If only it _hadn't_ been Natasha, he could have tried something – but _fuck,_ no, SHIELD had to assign him the most badass agent they had, so that he hadn't even bothered trying to do anything surreptitiously yet. He would have to try, at some point.

He shook his head again and banished the thought. That was... not what he was supposed to be thinking.

"When're the meds supposed to come?"

"You said you had a week," Natasha replied, frowning.

"Forgive me for not wanting to leave the state of my sanity hanging until the last moment," he retorted, drumming his fingers on the desk.

Natasha grimaced. "If you go too long without sleep, you'll start making mistakes," she said, completely ignoring his question. But then, it wasn't like she had any control over the medication situation either, did she? "Not to mention what it might do to your sanity."

"Jesus, fine."

He changed in the bathroom – the door was faintly ajar, unable to close entirely on the thick cord running to the socket in the other room – brushed the coffee off his teeth and splashed water on his face. In the mirror he looked wan and pale – that wasn't Natasha's fault; that was his own. Well, it was her fault insofar as she probably wouldn't let him borrow any makeup even if he asked, but shit, if he couldn't ignore appearances when locked in an apartment with a deadly assassin, when could he?

By the time he emerged from the bathroom, Natasha had changed and was already tucked underneath the covers of the other bed, her eyes closed and her breathing even. Tony didn't believe it for an instant – but even if she _was_ asleep, no doubt she'd wake up in an instant if he tried something stupid, like opening the door. He crawled under the covers of his own bed rather than try it, clicked the light out and rolled over onto his side facing away from her, lay in the darkness and tried to breathe evenly without letting his mind go.

It didn't work. Absent of code to pore over, his brain kept returning to the one problem that it had been trying to solve since he got here, preventing his body from relaxing into that ideal state where it would require less oxygen. Or thought it would – careful testing had revealed that aside from some aerosolized sedatives and painkillers – apparently the same applied to injectable ones, _thanks_, Natasha – it didn't really matter what he was breathing. Probably for the best, or he'd never have survived the ruins of Asgard. Loki's spell must have forgotten to tell his hind-brain that, however, because now he found himself unable to fake the slow, shallow breaths that came with sleep.

_Kill them first._

Well, he might as well just ask, then. "How did Steve die?"

For a long moment, there was only silence, and he began to think that Natasha wasn't going to answer, would pretend sleep instead (because there was no way she hadn't woken up the moment he'd spoken, if she'd ever actually dropped off at all. Not when she was on guard duty).

"ULTRON attacked our back-up base. It brought four armours with it. Rogers made himself bait, drew two of them off, to buy everyone else more time. He didn't come back."

"What, you never saw the body?"

"He was up against two armours. _They_ came back. We lost half our people in their second run."

Not seeing the body was the oldest cliché in the book. It had to count for something, right? But equally, Steve would never have cut and run, would have kept fighting until everyone else had gotten out. Unless he'd been injured beyond what even he could stand – and the serum had the potential for immense healing capability, the limits of which had never been tested (and for good reason). If he'd healed later –

_Cling to too much hope and you'll drive yourself crazy_, he thought, but he couldn't make himself let it go. Nor, however, did he voice as much to Natasha. He didn't think that she had much tolerance remaining for him right now. Which made it either the absolute worst or absolute best time to ask his next question.

He'd always been a gambler.

"And Clint?"

The pause this time was longer; her voice, when she spoke, was devoid of emotion, almost without inflection at all. "Right before the Chitauri Invasion, Loki let himself be caught. It was Barton's plan. They thought they could down the Helicarrier and take out SHIELD in one blow. He overstepped himself. His extraction plan worked for Loki, but I caught up with him before he made it off the Helicarrier, and took him out."

Breathe. Silently, slowly.

_She didn't know Clint had been brainwashed._

Or she was lying. Or she did know and didn't care. Or he hadn't actually been brainwashed, and had been a traitor, because that was just as possible as one of his own AI's becoming a genocidal maniac.

Should he tell her? What was the point? Clint was dead and she'd killed him – what would be the use in telling her, except to make her feel awful? Unless he needed her to feel awful, needed leverage at some point, but those were all just more arguments in favour of keeping it from her. Of course, if he didn't tell her until later, what were the odds she'd kill him for keeping it from her? Did she have a right to know?

_Liars and traitors..._

"You didn't try to capture him alive?" he asked the far wall.

"The Helicarrier was falling from the sky. Things got... turbulent."

Pause.

He had to ask it.

"What did his eyes look like, before he died?"

A longer pause.

"...are your symptoms returning?"

He buried his head in the pillow, letting his voice come out muffled. "Just maudlin. And tired." The last was a lie – but what was he supposed to do, admit he was trying to avoid sleep entirely? Worse, admit that he was capable of doing so?

"The meds'll be here by tomorrow. I'll make sure of it." Her voice hardened. "Go to sleep, Tony. Or I'll drug you."

_Shit._ That was the last thing he needed. But focusing on breathing was boring, and between one shallow breath and the next, Tony's mind slipped free.

He fell headlong into nightmares.

* * *

**NOW**

The next time Steve woke up, the IV was still present, but the restraints hadn't returned. The catheters were gone, too, which was... rather embarrassing, but illness wasn't big on dignity. He woke more slowly, this time, and didn't try to sit up immediately; instead, he went over the events of the past few – hours? Days? Weeks? – in his head, trying to put them all more firmly into place.

It was hard not to be embarrassed at his earlier paranoid thoughts – and worse, vague memories of screaming at people about... something, and needing to be restrained. These people had treated him for radiation sickness and saved his life – and he remembered being irradiated, now. But the feeling of fear, uncontrolled – where had that come from?

Carefully, Steve sat up, pulling the blanket around him in case Susan was still in the room – but, as far as he could see, he was alone. His vision still seemed oddly blurry – and then after a moment, he realized that it wasn't. It just wasn't as crystal-clear as it had been ever since the serum: it was like his vision had been before. And that explained how weak he felt, too – Steve looked down at himself and saw muscles. He hadn't _shrunk_; he had the natural strength of this body. But the serum's strength was gone. Hearing, though – he could still hear the buzz of the lights, the humming of machines around him, at frequencies well above normal human hearing. So what did that mean?

Cross that bridge when he got there, he decided, and turned his attention to the rest of the room. It wasn't the lab that he'd first been brought to; this was a smaller room, clearly designed specifically for medical purposes – it looked a lot like the infirmary on the Helicarrier. There were three other beds, counting the one that Anthony had sacked out in last – night? Day? What time was it, anyway?

A chair beside his bed held a pile of clothes and a post-it note, reading in blocky letters, _Be back in fifteen. Do NOT pull your IV._ He stood awkwardly, feeling off-balance and like he was overcompensating for every movement, and dressed. It was a slow process, especially getting the shirt – really just a very stretchy scrub-top – to go on over the IV, but at least by the end of it he felt like he knew his own limbs a bit better.

His internal sense of time was somewhat off, too, he noted; he couldn't tell if it had been closer to five minutes or ten. In any case, he wondered why nobody had noticed he was awake – or had some emergency drawn them away? The building around him was quiet, still, but that might not mean much if he was surrounded by a larger force field.

Well, there was one way to find out. He had the vaguest memory of somebody – Susan? – Sue – talking to an AI. Steve cleared his throat and asked, feeling a bit foolish at addressing an AI without a name – if it _was_ a full AI – "Building? Uh, where am I?"

There was no verbal reply, but he heard the quiet _whirr_ of machinery moving – a panel on the wall drew back and lit up with blueprints. Steve crossed over, pulling his IV stand along with, to take a better look, since he was unable to make out the details from a distance. A pulsing blue dot in the northeast corner – he automatically oriented 'up' with 'north', and then had to double-check with the map compass – had an arrow pointing at it, with a label in large font proclaiming, _You are here!_

"Thanks," he said, not quite sure what to make of the exclamation mark. Too bad the building couldn't, or wouldn't, talk. "Can I look outside? Or if there's a balcony, that would be great." Being unable to see a horizon – to verify that this was still New York, but not _his_ New York – was making him feel claustrophobic. He didn't know how Tony did it, staying shut up in his workshop (which had no real windows, although it was equipped with a number of panels that could make a good imitation of an outside view) – or how Tony had done it. _Would_ do it – no, Steve quashed that line of thought. If – _when_ – he found Tony, _his_ Tony, he was going to make more of a point of dragging him out of his lab and ensuring he wasn't... building an apocalyptic zombiefying nanovirus.

If Tony wasn't busy serving twenty-to-life instead.

The schematics on the screen rotated, turning 3D in the process, and showing a gently glowing blue line leading up through the building, the words, _This way! _written along it, along with a smiley emoticon. He glanced over the diagram, realized that a few seconds' thought wasn't enough to memorize it – not without the serum – and studied it for another half-minute, until he had it. "Thanks, building," he said with a smile, and set off with his IV pole.

The doors opened automatically – he repeated his thanks each time, although he felt a bit foolish with no one talking back to him. The design of the hallways looked not-quite familiar; it was _sort of_like the decor in Stark Tower, but yet not; high tech, modern, but different in a way that he couldn't pin down. Steve shook his head. Maybe it was just that he was still drugged – which probably meant he shouldn't just be wandering around. On the other hand, surely the building, as nice as it seemed to be, wouldn't have let him out of iso if his immune system was still dangerously low, so he didn't feel many qualms about pushing open the fire escape door and making his way onto the roof. The stairs did give him a bit of difficulty; having to carry the IV stand meant that he was slightly out of breath by the time he reached the top. Whether that was normal for someone with his physique and no serum, or the result of lingering weakness, he wasn't sure.

Good thing the clothing provided for him had included shoes; the roof was covered in the standard large, sharp gravel, making it impossible to drag the IV pole over it: he had to carry it again. But he didn't need to fully reach the edge to appreciate the differences from the New York skyline he was used to seeing. Granted, that skyline was the view from Stark Tower, whereas this was from a more southern location – but there were other differences, too: buildings too tall, or not tall enough. The biggest change was Stark Tower: although it was still _there_, the top-most floors of it seemed to be missing, and there was scaffolding up around it. More strangely, it seemed to have grown an attachment, and although Steve might not be an engineer, he was having difficulty trying to figure out how the attachment – like a wing on a rocket, if Stark Tower was a rocket pointed toward the ground – was managing to stay up, _especially_ as most of the beams that should have connected it to the Tower seemed to end abruptly over the wreckage of the top floors. More magic? Or was it some kind of force field? Maybe it had an engine like the Helicarrier's.

Well.

Alternate universes. Maybe crazier than waking up seventy years in the future – or maybe not. From what he'd gathered from Anthony, he was pretty sure he'd be able to get home at the end, so.

He took a deep breath. He could, in fact, do this.

The fire escape door opened behind him; he turned, the motion pulling awkwardly at the IV – already somewhat sore from all the wandering about he'd been doing. But the moment he saw who was joining him on the roof, all thought of pain or the altered skyline vanished; his jaw dropped open. Walking over to join him at the edge was... well... _him_.

Gravel crunched beneath his double's feet; he got close enough, and Steve could begin to pick out faint differences from the face that stared back at him from the mirror every morning. A few years older, perhaps, but – "Wow," Steve blurted out, blinking.

His alternate self chuckled, and – had Steve _ever _sounded that self-assured? Holy moley_. _"First time dealing with alternate realities?"

"Yeah, I... uh. You're _me_," Steve said, and then cringed at the inanity of the comment. _That_ was obvious.

"Yeah," said Steve. Other Steve. He sounded amused. "Weird, huh? Don't worry, you get used to it. We're a bit of a hub for inter-dimensional travellers. Get a lot of passerby – though, half the time they're villains. Glad that's not the case this time." He turned around to lean back against the brick half-wall, his elbows far enough back to rest on its low top – casual, like a fellow out for a smoke. "And the other half there's something apocalyptic going on."

Steve, for his part, leaned forward, feeling his shoulders hunch despite himself. His mind flashed back to the pile of corpses in Shenzhen – then, strangely, to a dead cornfield, gone hazy at the edges. Something he'd seen while he was sick? "I don't know about that," he said slowly. "I mean – I hope it's not that bad. Yet." If he could find Tony – Tony was _alive_. Surely he'd be able to do something about extremis, something that would exculpate him.

Other-him raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"

"Zombies."

"Oh, those're never good."

"Tell me about it," Steve said. It came out gloomier than he'd intended.

Other Steve laughed, humorous, but short; there was an edge of grief to it, barely perceptible. "Do you know who's behind it? There's always a super-villain whenever there's zombies, usually some two-bit magician with a chip on their shoulder. We had two near-zombie apocalypses just last year." His face had darkened with remembered anger.

"Yeah. I got an idea."

His other self shot him a concerned look, and Steve replayed the last two seconds in his memory: oh. That had come out more bitter than he'd first realized. A _lot_ more bitter. But the look he was getting was completely free of judgement, even the type that most people had: there was compassion, mercy, but no possibility for pity. Just... empathy, and completely trustworthiness. With a start, Steve realized that he would have believed his counterpart if he'd claimed that horses could ride on bridges made of rainbows – was that _really_ what he looked like? Jeez.

If he couldn't trust himself, though, who could he trust?

But that was the entire problem. He'd screwed up so massively, trusting his own judgement when it came to Tony – _trusting Tony_. Until he knew what had been going through Tony's head these last few months... relief made his limbs loose, the thought that he _would_ get to know, he just had to _find _him...

The faintest beginnings of crows-eye wrinkles spread out around Other-Steve's eyes as he nodded. "Someone you trusted."

He knew. He _knew_. And if he was older than Steve – if he'd lived it, or whatever had caused the top of this world's Stark Tower to go missing –

- maybe that meant that Steve would get through it, too.

"Tony built a virus," he said, haltingly, staring out at the construction work. "My Tony, not the... other one. And then he – we thought he'd died, but it wasn't really him. He got reality switched..." he snuck a glance at his counterpart.

"Sorcerer Tony – ah, the one who brought you here, but that's what we've been calling him – told us about the problem. Him and Reed have been working on it since you stabilized."

"Right. Well. He was gone, and some of his work..." Steve sighed. "He was working on a human enhancile. It got out, and..." he made an encompassing gesture with his hands, meant to mimic a bomb going off. "Zombies."

"A human enhancile?" The words were neither doubting nor confused. Steve could tell what his other self was asking just as easily as he could hear his own thoughts.

"He was doing some really shady stuff, with really shady people, while working on it," he admitted.

Other-him nodded, settling back against the brick again. "How long have you known him for?"

"Six months." Such a stupid, short amount of time.

His answer elicited a wince; he cocked an eyebrow, but didn't get an explanation for it. "Tony... is one of the smartest people I know, but he's also one of the dumbest people I know. And I've never met a version of him that wasn't like that. He's a good person – most versions of him – but he goes a bit... overboard, especially with things he thinks are his responsibility."

"Overboard like blowing up part of his Tower?" Steve asked, watching a crane swing slowly around the top of the wrecked bit, hauling up a load of piping large enough to make out from here.

Other-Steve laughed – but again, it was cut with grief. "Yeah, exactly like."

He seemed to be about to say more but a chime from his watch interrupted him; he held up his wrist, pressing a button on the side, and a hologram – 3D and all! Even Tony could only get that to work with surrounding architecture in place – burst up out of it, showing Sue's face. _"Steve,"_ she said quickly, and then looked over at Steve, too – so there had to be some kind of camera, although glancing again at the watch, it looked... well, like an ordinary watch. Neat. That outdid even Tony's tech._"And Steve. Sorry we had to leave you – lab emergency, you know how it is –anyway. You should get down here. Strange finally turned up, and he's got news you need to hear, both of you."_

"We're on our way," Other-Steve promised.

The hologram winked out, seeming to fold back into the watch as it did so, and Steve couldn't quite stop himself from blurting out, "That's really nifty."

Other-Steve grinned at him, good-humoured. "Future's not all bad." He picked up Steve's IV pole with enviable ease – enviable in Steve's current state, at least – and, catching Steve's look, said, "Oh, and don't worry about the serum. The docs are pretty sure it'll go back to normal soon, although you'll have to ask Sue or Sorcerer Tony for the details."

That was a relief. "Thanks. Strange?"

"Our version of Sorcerer Tony, although I think he's a bit more mystic, overall," Other-Steve explained, as they made their way back across the rooftop and back through the building. Not to the medical bay again, though – other-him took them down a few more flights of stairs before exiting out onto a floor marked with a bit '51' on its fire door.

"I'm... not exactly dressed," Steve said, looking down at himself. Even ignoring the IV still stuck in his arm, he was wearing khakis and a scrub-top: not the most dignified of clothing.

But Other-him shrugged. "Don't worry, we don't stand on ceremony."

Maybe not, but there was something armouring about not being dressed in clothing that he might have worn to bed. Oh, well – he'd suck it up and brave it. There wasn't much for it but to go, anyway – he wasn't about to be left out of hearing whatever it was this Strange had to say.

They reached an open door and went in, sound suddenly becoming audible as they stepped over the threshold. Some sort of security device? " – break all the bounds of sanity," a man was saying coldly, and Steve, although forewarned, did another double-take.

Although there were other people he didn't know in the room, it was obvious which one of them was Strange: he and Anthony looked eerily similar. It wasn't just the wardrobe – although that _was_a large part of it; the other sorcerer (and he had to be a sorcerer) was dressed almost the same, except that he wasn't wearing a golden half-faceplate; the winking gem that was set over Anthony's left eye instead hung around his neck as an amulet. But it was the same general mien, some sort of _aura_ that, seeing them together, Steve realized Tony – _his_ Tony... lacked.

What _was _it? A willingness to wear ridiculous capes, and the ability to pull it off, maybe?

The conference room was small, designed to host perhaps a dozen people. Half that many were within. To be fair, Reed was stretched out enough to fill the seats of three people; his head was horribly distended, apparently so that he could manage to look at three computer screens at once; he was tapping away at two different keyboards with fingers that more resembled a spider's legs. Steve shuddered and looked away. At the far end of the table, a... man? Was that a man? A person, certainly, although possibly not human – the guy looked like he was made out of _literal_ rock, and stood twice as wide as the young man sitting near him. Incongruously, both appeared to be playing on a hand-held gaming device, and were elbowing each other – the rock-man taking apparent care not to do so too hard – each time one or the other got a leg up.

"I knew perfectly well what I was doing, and nothing would have gone awry had nobody decided to forcibly interfere," Anthony retorted, glaring at the other Steve, who pulled out a chair for Steve before taking one himself. The IV line got caught on the armrest and had to be freed, making Steve slow to sit.

"Yes, how unreasonable of us to stop you from conjuring the literal Devil," Other-Steve said, _very_ dryly. He nodded cordially at Strange. "Stephen. Good to see you again."

Stephen? Childishly, Steve couldn't keep from thinking – didn't they have _enough_ Steves in the room already? He was surprised that this world's Tony wasn't here, too, to further complicate matters – unless... other-him hadn't said anything, but there _was_ a chunk of Stark Tower missing, and the way Other-Steve had sounded... maybe it was just a really bad week to be Tony.

He cut that thought off almost as it formed: horribly, terribly gauche.

"And how did _you_ get the Urn of Unnhar?" Anthony asked – Steve thought it was directed at Strange, although Anthony was staring pointedly at the ceiling, looking like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

"As a _last resort_ – "

"Enough," Sue cut them off, taking on the role of diplomat. "Steve," she was looking at him, not his counterpart, "I'm glad to see you're up and okay, even if I would have preferred you have a check-up before absconding from the med-bay."

"Sorry, ma'am."

Sue blinked at him. "Well... it's fine," she said, after a pause. Was he not supposed to call her ma'am? Or was it that she was friends with this universe's Steve? But that didn't mean _they_ knew each other, any more than he knew Anthony – somewhat less, actually. He hadn't stripped naked in front of her, thank the Lord. "Your results are stabilizing – " she tapped the table and, like one of Tony's, it turned out to be a computer screen, displaying a chart of completely incomprehensible terms and numbers.

"I take it from the argument we walked in on that you've been told what's going on here, Stephen?" Other-Steve took the opportunity to ask, while Steve thanked her awkwardly.

"Yes. And now I see I may have come to the wrong place in looking for help. You will have your hands full dealing with this reckless incompetent!" He looked down his nose at Anthony – not hard to do; he was standing and Anthony was seated. "If you cannot look past individual concerns to see the greater good, then you have no business meddling as you have."

"You'll not stop me, Stephen," Anthony murmured, and even Reed – who had thus far been totally engrossed in his computers and ignoring the brewing – looked up at the sheer hostility he managed to pack into the words.

"Woah," said the youngest man in the room (aside from Steve himself), the guy at the back playing video games. "Wizard fight!" He, like Reed and Susan, was wearing a dark blue, close-fitting leotard with a _4_ logo on it; unlike them, he wasn't also wearing a lab coat. Were they some kind of team, then? Who was their fourth member? The boulder-guy was wearing the same coloured pants, but he didn't have a shirt. And who on earth had designed a uniform that dorky? Steve's own uniform had – issues – but at least it had a _point_.

"_Enough_," Steve found himself echoing Sue, before feeling suddenly, terribly off-balance – this wasn't his place. But, Hell, when had he let that stop him? He barrelled on. "This isn't helping. Mr. Strange – "

"_Doctor_, thank you," Strange interrupted acidly.

"_Dr_. Strange," always had to be the pushy ones – of _course_ he was a Doctor, "I don't know what news you've got for us, but I'm guessing it isn't good. And it's not like this situation is a pretty one to begin with. We need to work together to get this fixed, and having a pissing match isn't going to help anything."

For a moment, there was silence, and the uncertainty loomed larger in Steve's brain. Should he have stayed quiet? He was a visitor here, after all – they were all _staring_ at him, except himself, who was staring down at the tabletop with a far too deadpan expression. Damn it. Steve put on his best Faced With News Cameras face and stared back, setting his jaw. The moment drew out longer.

"Wow, it's like... mini-you," said video-game guy. He sounded faintly awed. "Half the age, twice the sincerity – "

"Johnny." Wow. With _that_ tone, Sue and Johnny had to be related, and closely. Siblings?

" – you have got to be. Like. _Twelve._ And I _would still totally take on Nazis for you –_" his gameboy gave a disheartened beep and he looked down at it; evidently the boulder-guy had taken advantage of his distraction. "Hey!"

"Out," Sue ordered crisply.

"Awright, friends don't let friends be idiots at Captain America," Boulder-guy said – his voice was low and rumbly, as one might expect, but surprisingly easy on the ears. He dragged Johnny out. "Come on – best of twenty-three?"

As soon as they were past the threshold of the door, Reed said, "Building, lockdown this room with security pattern alpha-triad-fifty." The lights dimmed – barely perceptible to Steve's reduced vision. A low hum began behind the walls, every few seconds adding another chord, higher and higher – Steve rubbed at his ears as they started reaching uncomfortable pitches. Without the other aspects of the serum balancing it out, it seemed there were some more downsides to super hearing than he'd already thought.

The six of them remaining in the room sobered; thoughts of asking what Johnny had meant by Steve being 'twelve' were driven from his head.

"Stephen?" Reed broke the silence. Well, not-silence – from where Steve was sitting, it was pretty loud. "You said you had urgent news."

Strange glanced around the room. "Not the usual assembly," he murmured. "But I suppose it will do." He took a chair, finally, and sitting – the high collar of his cape framing his head – he looked even more like Anthony than he had before.

"Three days ago," Strange began, "I was on my way back from the Dark Dimension when I stumbled across a... disturbance, one that might have had concern for Earth. During my attempts to rectify the situation, I attempted to travel to Tepeu and found the way barred – the entire realm closed to travel."

"Tepeu?" asked Other-Steve – and Steve was glad he didn't have to be the one to ask. He snuck a glance at his counterpart, but Other-Steve seemed genuinely sincere about the question – asking for his own sake and not just taking pity on Steve, then.

"The realm of the Aztec gods," Anthony answered for him. Their earlier enmity seemed forgotten – or at least put aside, for now.

"Exactly so," Stephen nodded graciously. "Fortunately I was able to take care of the matter despite it. But upon double-checking, in the last twenty-four hours I have discovered that Tepeu is far from the only godly realm to have shut its gates. K'un L'un, Vaikuntha, Asgard, Takama-ga-hara, Olympus – I could go on. The gods of Earth have barred their realms to mortals. Nor can I find the slightest scrap of evidence that any of them remain on Earth itself, although I could have sworn that a number were in residence before I left."

The gods of Earth.

Did they all believe that? After seeing Thor and Loki... well, they were powerful, but they weren't _God_. Other religions had different views, of course – but that didn't make much sense, that somebody would believe in _all_ of them. Did it?

A question for another time, he told himself.

Silence, for a moment. "Well," said Anthony at last, "I guess that makes my search more urgent."

That was... sort of a leap, Steve thought, and apparently he wasn't the only one who failed to see the logic, there. "You don't think this takes priority?" Other-Steve asked, eyebrows raised.

"I think they go hand-in-hand." Anthony steepled his fingers, and managed to end up looking like a villain out of one of the 'old' movies that Clint had taken to showing Steve to try to get him 'caught up on cinematic history'. "Somebody tosses a bunch of me's through one collection of universes, and now in another universe there's something cosmic enough going on to make the gods themselves fort up? I think they're related."

"I think you might be over-stating your own importance, Tony," Sue said, also sounding skeptical. "No offense. Besides – gods might be forting up in our universe, but that doesn't mean they're doing so elsewhere. If you run the number of how likely you were to drop here, or some other world with a similar situation..."

"I know the math, Sue," Anthony said, apparently un-offended. "And _exactly_ how important I am." He winked at her – though it was more friendly than flirtatious – as well it might be. She was married; her husband was _right there_, for crying out loud.

But Reed wasn't watching Sue or Anthony; he looked like he was trying to have a telepathic conversation with Stephen. Hell, one of them was a sorcerer, and the other was apparently made of rubber; maybe they _were_ having a telepathic conversation. "Actually, I think Tony's right, dear," Reed chimed in now. "Anything powerful enough to so badly frighten the Gods in such a manner is liable to pose a threat to more worlds than just our own. In that light, multi-versal shenanigans are more suspect than usual."

Sue was staring narrow-eyed at him, and Steve recognized – more from a life ago, when he'd been around married couples at least occasionally – the universal signs of, _We will be having a conversation about this later, _dear_, when the guests are gone._

She couldn't be annoyed that he'd contradicted her – she seemed too level-headed for that, and anyway, it was the wrong type of stare. Reed's body language was almost impossible for Steve to read – Reed's body was simply too, well, _wobbly_ – but Sue was a clearer picture. She thought Read was keeping something from her.

But what?

"I am rather uncertain about sending someone so rash to deal with this," Stephen said – obviously aimed at Anthony, although he wasn't speaking directly to him. His fingers tapped against the table-top, catching attention – deliberately? What had been said, or hadn't needed to be said, between him and Reed?

Was Steve just reading far too much into everything? He glanced at his counterpart – who was _also_ watching Reed and Stephen, with much the same look as Sue was wearing, minus the wifely threat and plus a commander-ly one. Maybe they didn't want to ask in front of _Steve,_ then – or was it Anthony? They were the outsiders here, after all, and Steve wasn't sure he wouldn't have the same sort of reservations in their place.

Anthony rolled his eyes, drawing attention again. "As I said before, Stephen, you won't stop me." At least it didn't have the same level of hostility as before – apparently, he'd calmed down somewhat.

Still, their bickering was... useless. Steve tried deflecting it, asking a question that apparently everyone but him knew the answer to – at least _that_ was something he had plenty of practice at. "Um. What do you mean by multi-versal?"

"Across multiple... earths..." Stephen answered automatically, trailing off when – apparently – the inanity of the question hit him. He turned to Reed – who also looked somewhat surprised, as did Sue. "How old is he?"

Well, that was just insulting. "Twenty-six," Steve said evenly, at the same time as Reed said the same thing.

Stephen's mouth twitched slightly upward, and he nodded to Steve – _point taken_.

"Or ninety-five, if you like," Steve added shortly, although that just garnered him more odd looks. "So, what's multi-versal mean?"

"The 'multi-verse' is somewhat inaccurate name given to the collection of alternate realities along the higher dimensions," Reed finally explained. "Technically, it's all still in the same universe, but since carrier frequencies of the schisms experience exponential decay along – "

"Just consider it the local collection of alternate realities," Susan said firmly, cutting her husband off. "Our universe has worlds accessible mainly through the lower dimensions – what we think of as 'space': length, breadth, and width – and the middle dimensions, such as the routes to Asgard or the Dark Dimension." She nodded at the two sorcerers. "Higher dimensions – along which we have so-called 'alternate realities' – are just ones that are harder to move through – it takes more energy. That's why we don't have nearly so many people crossing through."

"Not really true," said Anthony, temporizing.

Sue raised an eyebrow at him, as if daring him to explain – or threatening him if he _didn't_. "Oh?"

"There are laws and forces that keep various universes – realities," Stephen explained in his place, "from threatening each other." He leaned back in his chair, looking rather as though he would have steepled his fingers, if Anthony hadn't already adopted that pose. "Powerful entities, for example, rarely manage to keep their full power once outside their home universe. The same goes for powerful artefacts."

"Yes," Anthony drawled; he leaned back in his chair as well, at an angle that seemed likely to have been calculated just to annoy Stephen. "How fortunate for me that I make my own toys, instead of relying upon the craft of those long dead."

"The point," said Stephen, unperturbed, "is that to create an energy spread along such a large range of realities as Tony has described should be impossible, unless someone is abusing a loophole. And if that is the case, then where are the beings whose job it is to look out for that sort of thing?"

Was he supporting Anthony's position, or arguing against it? Steve was beginning to have problems keeping track.

"Previously, I hadn't thought it much of a threat; cosmically speaking it's a minor inconvenience." Anthony shrugged. "It's not like you could use this method of travel to displace anything of greater consequence than a human – for the reasons you yourself mentioned. Their power gets left behind."

Stephen grimaced. He looked slightly guarded – like he had before, when he and Reed had been maybe-telepathically-speaking. So. More of whatever it was that they didn't want to mention in front of strangers, perhaps?

"You underestimate humanity," Reed said, off-handedly.

Other-Steve put up his hand jokingly. "I'll toast to that."

"Note my use of previously," Anthony replied, somewhat peevishly. "Gods bugging out _would_ indicate something more than a _minor inconvenience._"

"We still don't know it's related," Sue put in. Steve glanced at her – she looked like she was starting to get annoyed by all the cloying secrecy in the room, too.

"Let us assume, then, that it hasn't previously been taken care of by the Living Tribunal or some other such power because its usage has been small," Stephen extemporized. "Granting that the Tribunal knows its own business, and granting that it has not simply been outmatched and therefore we are not about to die horribly any moment now – "

" – which is also assuming a lack of such mundane cosmic events such as gamma-ray bursts, stellar black holes, quasar rotation, Galactus – "

"He already came by and agreed to spare Earth in exchange for the Nullifier," noted Reed.

" – _granting_ that we are not about to die horribly any moment now_,_" Stephen flicked his fingers dismissively at Anthony, while Sue rolled her eyes, "it remains that while your situation _may_ be related, there is no sudden solution. You _lost _the trail. It will not be easily found again."

"To be fair," Steve said, raising the hand that didn't have an IV sticking into it, "that was my fault."

Both of the sorcerers looked at him, and then away, in a move so synchronously dismissive that it could have been practiced. Steve grit his teeth. They seemed to be having an entire conversation, silently, based off of past shared experiences – past similarities between their two roles.

"The rest of us have a duty to _this_ world to prepare it for whatever may come," Stephen concluded.

"He has a point. I have an extrapolation algorithm that would at least get you back to where you where, eventually," Reed said thoughtfully, "but given how many times you hopped about, and the delay since you arrived, it would have to run off of close-matching anisotropic biosignatures – so, predicting a 69% chance of taking longer than three months."

Anthony leaned forward in his chair, his eyes glinting with amusement; but he was very serious as he said, "The fast and sure conventional methods are shot, yes. But since we are all so very good at thinking outside the box, let's consider doing so. In fact, I might be so bold as to suggest that always astonishing idea – I could _ask for directions._"

"No," Other-Steve said immediately and firmly. Steve shot him a surprised look.

"Steve's right," Sue said. Reed nodded in agreement, a motion that had his head staying at the same angle while his neck squished up and down.

Anthony leaned back in his chair, his mouth twisting.

"Um," said Steve. "Why is that a bad idea?" It sounded surprisingly like common sense, for all that it coming from a Tony Stark who was wearing, well, _that_.

"Because anybody – or should I say, any_thing_ – that might be able to give inter-reality directions is going to ask a hefty price, one that may not work out in Earth's favour," his counterpart explained with a brief glance, before looking back to pin Anthony to his chair with his eyes. "Summoning Mephisto was a bad idea yesterday, and it's still a bad idea today."

"Not Mephisto, then," Anthony shrugged, although the motion wasn't as carefree as it could have been; there was too much tension in his movements now. "He's generally the fastest, true – "

" – for which he commands the highest prices – " Reed murmured.

" – and he's the most willing to deal – "

" – because he's the best at screwing people over – " Other-Steve said darkly.

" – but there are other sources out there."

"Who, then?" Stephen demanded. "None of the gods of the Earthen pantheons will see you. Anyone else will be as bad as Mephisto."

"And that's where I think you're wrong," Anthony retorted, pointing with his steepled fingers. "If the gods are acting in consort then they've got some sort of diplomacy happening between them – and it might not be happening _at_ the Infinite Embassy, but I'll bet you ten grand that there's spillover into there."

"If they have locked their realms, the Embassy will empty at the moment," Stephen pointed out after a short pause – although he no longer sounded totally opposed to the plan. "You are still only likely to find the sort of beings with whom a deal would make the current situation definitively worse."

Anthony smiled, and it was the exact same sort of shit-eating grin that Tony liked to direct at Fury. "And yet, that's the plan. Unless you've got a better idea."

"We could deal with our crises one at a time," Sue suggested dryly. "Also a revolutionary idea, I know."

"No, he's right about there being a likely connection," Reed said, and earned himself another one of those _We're talking later_ looks.

"Any other ideas?" Anthony challenged them, at large.

Steve wasn't sure what he should say. This was all so far beyond his experience, beyond his expertise – sure, he knew about some deals with the devil (working special ops in WWII, you learned all about 'em) but dealing with _beings_... he kept his mouth shut, and beside him, Other-Steve did the same, although he was watching the other four with narrowed eyes. Maybe he was saving his objections for in private afterward, then.

"You don't get to deal on behalf of our Earth," Sue said, finally, wearily.

"I wouldn't, in any case." Anthony sounded indignant.

"I still find myself doubting the wisdom of this path," Stephen said slowly. "I cannot see that you are the worthy choice."

"If you want a duel for the honour you're going to find yourself outmatched," Anthony said flippantly – dangerously. Then he sobered – even more dangerously. "I have bested Dormammu on his own ground; I have crafted items of power that will carry me through any battle. You're a powerful guardian, Stephen, but you were a healer before you were a sorcerer. I was a weapons designer. Think carefully before you invite me to take my best shot."

"No one," Other-Steve said firmly, "is fighting anyone. And the more you keep suggesting it, the more I find _myself_ doubting this idea."

The two sorcerer locked gazes for a long moment. "Certainly, no fighting," Stephen replied, equally quiet. "Any trial I might propose would test more subtle qualities than that. Unless you really think that _force_ is what is needed here."

"No, not at all," Anthony said easily, "but without force to back it up, you can _propose_ any test you damn well please and I can ignore you as much as I like."

"Oh, enough," said Sue, sounding exasperated. "You two are worse than Franklin and Valerie." She slapped her hand down on the table. "If that's agreed, then Steve should get back to the med-bay – I want that IV changed for the next course of antibiotics." But her gaze skipped over him, landing on Other-Steve – Steve was too slow to turn to look, to see if or how it had been acknowledged – before returning to her husband.

Multi-versal 'shenanigans'. Steve wondered if the building, like JARVIS, could pull up some reports on the topic for him to read.

"Well, if that's settled," Reed put in as Steve and Sue both stood. The IV got caught under the arm-rest again and nearly ripped it out this time. "Stephen, I'd like your thoughts on my defense re-designs. We have such a propensity for attracting visitors, I've thought for a while that it would be a good idea if we had something more stringent in place – and now is a better time than ever."

"Excellent," Anthony said, rolling his eyes. "So I am free to go on my way unhindered by your offers of help, then? Because I really think I've delayed long enough."

"Certainly, certainly," Reed said, his attention clearly focused on the screen in front of him. "I can run that algorithm and have Steve home soon." He rubbed at his chin with fingers that were far too long to be normal. "A few months, tops."

Steve froze where he stood, feeling his face and jaw tighten. "No. I'm going with you."

Anthony blinked at him. "You're still recovering."

"You just implied force _wouldn't_ be the answer to this," Steve pointed out. "I'm going."

"It might be, it might not be – that doesn't mean that wandering across the worlds isn't dangerous," Anthony said, looking worried. "Look at where I managed to land you after only a few jumps."

"I'm going," Steve said a third time, and hesitated. "I think... I think this could be my fault."

"That the detector wasn't sturdy enough to stand up to a second signature was my fault, Steve – "

"No, that's not it," Steve shook his head. "Before... Tony, my Tony, I mean – he was trying to build, uh, portals to other worlds. Not just to Asgard, but to... other places. Thor took a look at where Tony was trying to go and called them 'elseworlds'."

Silence, for a moment, as they all mulled that over; then, "I was _on_ your world, and it wasn't the source of this," Anthony said.

"So maybe he didn't do it from my world."

More silence.

Stephen leaned forward, his full attention on Steve; it felt vaguely like he was, if possible – which, it _was_ – that the man was reading his mind, or perhaps his very soul. "You'll be bringing attention to yourself that you may not wish to bear."

"I'll deal with it," Steve said firmly. The feeling of everyone else insisting he wasn't physically fit for the task put him on familiar ground again, making it easier than it might otherwise have been. "I'm going."

Anthony hummed, considering. "I'll have to ward you, of course. Head to toe – Reed, if you've got some sort of experimental body-armour lying around, now would be the time – "

"That was more Tony's thing, really," Reed said. Everybody else in the room winced, except Steve and Anthony.

"Was?" Steve asked, and then almost bit his tongue at his own faux-pas.

"We... uh, _had_ a Tony," Other-Steve said. His expression was a strange mix of grief, anger, and bafflement. "It's a long story."

Anthony snorted. "A long and ridiculous story."

"People died," Other-Steve snapped at him.

"Yes, and in entirely ridiculous ways, too," Anthony agreed urbanely. "Which, in my experience, tends to mean they're going to be resurrected sooner rather than later, probably as soon as this dimensional warp has wrapped itself up – lucky you. Stephen, it will have to be me who wards Steve, if we're going to possibly be moving on immediately. Am I to assume that I should also handle the transport to the Infinite Embassy myself, or might you be so kind as to save us the additional day in preparation?"

"Ah, so you _are_ asking for help, now?" Stephen chuckled, but there was a dour note in it.

"No, I'm asking if you're going to be an asshole or not."

"Me? Hardly ever. Or at least only occasionally. No, I'm going to be_ kind_, and tell you to do it yourself. Steve looks could use all the time he can get to recuperate."

"I'll be fine."

"You're wearing an IV," Stephen pointed out. "As Tony has been so kind to remind us all, I have the title of _Dr._ Strange for a reason. Unlike you, I am fully capable of understanding exactly what Reed and Tony did to you to save your life, and my professional medical opinion on the matter is that you ought to rest for at least another week. It would help the serum rebalance faster."

"He's right," Anthony put in. "You really ought to stay here."

Great. So he hadn't _actually_ managed to convince Anthony – which meant he'd have to stick around the guy, make sure he didn't try to take off without Steve. "I'm going," he insisted, glaring at them both – and then at _all_ of them. They were all looking at him with such... _concern_. Fondness. And he didn't know any of them. "What's your real problem with me going?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

Sue had leaned back against a wall, rather than retaking her seat, and now she spoke up, eyes dancing, for all that her expression was serious. "Johnny might have been a bit... tactless about it, but he was right, too. You're young."

Steve set his jaw, and said evenly, "I'm twenty-six."

Other-Steve sighed. "You're eight months out of the ice."

"Eight months out of the War. I can take care of myself."

"That's not – would you give us some privacy?" Other-Steve directed that one at the sorcerers.

"_Silencio,"_ Anthony intoned – which evidently worked, because Steve could see everybody's eyebrows raising, mouths moving as they heckled him, but he couldn't actually hear any of them except other-him, who muttered, "_Really?_"

Another reference he didn't understand. Well, fine. Eight months out, he thought he was doing pretty good.

"Look," Other-Steve said, "it's not about age. Not exactly," he amended.

"I have responsibilities I need to take care of," Steve told him, catching his gaze and holding it.

"I know. And I'm not going to stop you. I don't have the right. But I – we look at you, and we see ourselves, from years ago. We were all so damn young when we started this. We threw ourselves at the world and survived by the skin of our teeth and ran away laughing... we didn't think we could lose. Not really."

"If you've fought in my War," Steve said, "then you know."

"Maybe I did," he admitted. "But I made myself forget. Because I couldn't do it again – I couldn't lose it all again. I couldn't let myself... imagine the possibility. Can you?"

Steve stared at him. The empty place in his thoughts echoed silently, tantalizing, drawing him in – the still-aching grief and the memory, the resignation, the knowledge that he would _never_ get any answers. Working with the Avengers had only barely begun to melt his fears of waking up and finding the world changed again – but they weren't untouchable. They could break, like Tony had. All of them could be... gone.

"I haven't forgotten yet," Steve said quietly, spreading his palms flat against the table and leaning in, heedless of the way the much-abused IV pulled at his skin. "I don't have the luxury. But my friend is out there, somewhere. He might be in trouble. He _might_ be able to fix the zombie problem. I don't know, but I'm gonna find him, and God have mercy on you if you stand in my way, because _I_ sure won't."

He got a long, measuring look, that he met without blinking. At last, apparently satisfied, Other-Steve nodded. "Okay." He waved at Anthony to get his attention again. The sorcerer flicked his fingers, and the sounds outside returned.

" – faux-Latin is hardly less dignified than some of the idiocy that the ancients would have us recite," he was arguing to Stephen.

"Have you even _read_ those books?" asked Sue, incredulous.

"Nope," Anthony admitted cheerfully, before turning to Steve and other-Steve. "What's up, then? Did Cap manage to make you see sense?"

"Yes, he did," said other-Steve, earning himself a blink, and then a sour look. "So when are you two leaving?"

* * *

**THEN**

_"Sure you know who to trust, Stark?" Clint asked him, his eyes perfectly normal, perfectly _not blue_, as he raised his gun, not even looking, and shot Pepper in the face. The back of her head exploded, bone and brain matter blown out from the exit wound._

_Tony couldn't move, even though all his limbs strained forward, strained to do something, to _stop him_. But he was encased in stone from the neck down and rendered completely impotent. "JARVIS!" he shouted. The HUB was blurred, something was wrong with it – no, that was his own tears, half-blinding him._

"I'm afraid, sir, that your judgement in these areas is lacking,"_ JARVIS replied calmly, and then his arms were moving against his will, his hands coming up to his face, palms toward him._

"JARVIS!"

_The repulsors powered up and fired._

Tony jolted awake. The sheets were uncomfortably damp with sweat, and he shoved the covers off, but that just left him shivering, sweat-soaked and freezing. His chest ached. After a moment, he looked down, and managed to make out in the semi-darkness that it was due to his left hand being wrapped around the cord and pulling on it with considerable force – not enough to pull the wire, which was attached with a screw, but enough to make reactor housing tug painfully at the flesh around it. Shit. He couldn't quite make his fingers let go, but he brought up his other arm and clutched them both to his chest as he curled up to shiver on the bed.

"Stark?" Natasha's voice drifted over to him.

He pushed himself off the bed, nearly tripped over the cord, and made his way to the bathroom, flicking the light switch on there. The door still wouldn't shut; through it, he called, "I'm taking a shower." His reflection in the mirror looked sallow – the lights, dingy as they were, weren't helping. The thought at climbing into the shower, naked, made his skin crawl; even around the sink, the evidence of use by two people without any cleaning – because Natasha was the furthest thing from a maid, even if she did take care of microwaving meals and ensuring there was coffee – was showing. He needed sandals or something.

_You've put up with worse,_ his reflection seemed to say. So he had. Of course, in Afghanistan he'd _had _to put up with worse; he hadn't had the option of being able to go without food, sleep, or showers. But this wasn't Afghanistan.

As if to belie the thought, Yinsen asked him mildly, "I thought you had given up killing children, Stark." His voice was coming from just behind Tony's left shoulder, but of course there was no reflection in the glass – because there was nobody there. "This is not what I gave up my life for."

"An AI is not a child," Tony told himself, grabbing a washcloth and wetting it to scrub at his face. When he looked up at the mirror again, Yinsen still wasn't there.

He shaved, taking extra care around his goatee. The razor was harsh against his skin. How long would it be until Natasha noticed that he didn't actually need it? Could he hope that even she might occasionally be careless, that she wouldn't be looking for something so outlandish as a man who grew hair not merely slowly, but not at all? His fingers were clumsy around the razor, after months upon months of not bothering with it, and he nicked himself twice.

"Careful," someone murmured to him. It could have been Yinsen, again, or maybe it was Steve; one worrywart sounded much like another.

"Yes, mother," he muttered back. If he shaved his head entirely, would he be permanently doomed to baldness? It was a question he hadn't dared to test the answer to, but now... running from_anyone_ in this world ULTRON or SHIELD, would be difficult with his trademark look. But if he lost it...

The lights buzzed annoyingly as he inspected his reflection in the mirror. They were altogether inadequate, too yellow, making him look sallow; not the best way for anyone to be evaluating how their face would look for the rest of their life.

_I have to get back._ _I have to survive long enough to figure out the portal data this Banner has._

_Why are you so convinced you_ _'_ _ll have to run from this SHIELD, anyway? Because of imaginary voices?_

He washed off the razor and stored it away above the sink, beard still intact.

The shower had to come eventually. He grit his teeth, ignored the fact that his feet were trying to float clear of the bathtub ceramic, and washed as quickly as he could. As he was towelling off, after, Natasha knocked on the door – hard enough that she must have been holding onto the handle on the other side; otherwise it should have swung open. Tony supposed he was supposed to be grateful that she was willing to grant him at least the illusion of privacy, so much as could be had in a place with cameras _everywhere_.

He shouldn't have talked back to Yinsen. Weakness, stupidity – he needed to be more careful.

"The medications arrived," she said through the door.

He pulled his jeans up, hopping about a bit as they stuck to still-damp skin, and stuck his head out. He kept his torso behind the door – it made a flimsy shield, but even if she'd almost certainly seen it before, he wasn't about to go flashing the gaping hole in his chest around. "They did? Gimme." _When exactly, did someone come by, did you leave the apartment,_ were questions that went unasked, and Natasha didn't volunteer any answers. Instead she just handed over a small baggie of pills. He eyed it for a moment, then snatched it from her hand and shoved the door to close as much as he could.

His chest was hurting again. He snatched his hand away from the cord and pulled on a shirt, then picked up the bag again and stared at it. The pills inside were white, round – on the bag someone had written _100mg_ with a permanent marker. The ones that he'd gotten from the pharmacy back home – that he'd hacked into a local pharmacy's records to create a prescription for, that JARVIS had delivered to a drop-box – they'd been oblong, all 200mg in one pill.

He pulled two of them out, stared at them down in his palm. The back of his neck itched from the hidden cameras watching him. No doubt Natasha was watching him _right now_. Nothing personal in it. It was just her job. Master assassin.

She'd killed Clint.

Clint had killed Pepper.

_No_, he reminded himself firmly. Nobody had killed Pepper. Pepper was alive, and well, and probably freaking out over his absence back home, and he had to build a virus that could take down ULTRON, he had to –

- he had to –

- he had to get back home. He had to focus on Loki.

_SHIELD always lies._

The pills looked like poison, and he barely stopped himself from laughing. Natasha had been making the meals for the past few days, and he was worried about her feeding him poison _now?_ Not that she could kill him, probably, but he knew at least some drugs still affected him – or the Tanaxa would have been worthless. The only way to avoid possibly being poisoned would be to stop eating or drinking anything – and at that point he might as well stop sleeping, too, because if he was going to give away any of his secrets...

"You can't trust her," a woman's voice whispered in his ear. She sounded frightened, whoever she was.

Tony wanted to laugh again. Of course he couldn't trust Natasha. If he could trust her _he wouldn't fucking be eating –_

He popped the two pills into his mouth, pushed them into his cheek with his tongue. Ran the tap, filled his cupped hands with water, and swallowed it – not the pills. Kept the tap running – rubbed at his forehead, his eyes, like he had a headache. Grabbed the washcloth, wet it and scrubbed at his face and neck – would that be suspicious, after showering? It didn't matter – he wasn't good enough at slight-of-hand not to need an aid. As he passed the washcloth over his mouth, he spat the pills into it, and rinsed them down the drain when he passed the cloth beneath the water again. Folded the cloth against his eyes. It was freezing cold, and it did feel nice, even if it was making his fingers go numb.

"This is a bad idea," said Steve. He sounded worried again.

Tony ignored him. He was good at that. He had six months' – more – of practice at it.

And anyway, Steve wasn't telling him anything he didn't know. Skipping medication was a _terrible_ idea.

But he couldn't possibly take it.


	4. Chapter 4

**THEN**

"Tony, will you please just _listen_ to me," Pepper pleaded. Her tone had hit that particular quality that spelled end-of-the-rope, the one that had been ever-present right before they'd broken up. _'Tony, you haven't been out of the lab in seventy-two hours. JARVIS wouldn't accept my overrides. R&D needs your signature. If you're going to be CTO – never have time anymore – always exhausted –'_

"You can't just hand over tech like this without proper agreements in place," she scolded him now. "You're gallivanting off and doing the lone ranger thing, but we're not just talking about financial obligations, here, this is going to get people _killed_."

_Oh, Pep,_ he wanted to reply. _I gave you my heart – or I would've, if you hadn't stolen it first – but I can't give you these secrets. _He could picture exactly what Loki would do to her if he did. It was best she was gone, and not just because even in the scant hours he'd been able to spend with her, away from his projects and plans, it had been far too easy to begin to slip, to tell her of what lay beyond...

Natasha was doing push-ups in the corner – of _course_ she was. It didn't stop her from noticing him noticing her noticing him scrubbing at his face. He had a headache.

The caffeine wouldn't help the headache, and he didn't need it to stay awake, but he took a swig of cold coffee anyway. At the very least, it would provide a smokescreen for Natasha, no matter how flimsy. "None of this data makes sense," he announced. It was a lie. The data was flat-out _wrong_. He knew. He'd tried a similar approach early on. It didn't produce results like this.

"Are you looking for me to help?" Natasha said, slightly breathless. She didn't pause in her exercise. The sarcasm came through clear enough despite it.

"I am looking for you," he pulled down the headphones, although he hadn't been listening to music anyway; music too often disintegrated into vague, cryptic warnings, "to get me the _actual_ data. Like we agreed upon."

She pushed off with her hands and was standing in one fluid motion. Tony admired her – mostly because he couldn't quite bring himself to turn away, to expose his back. "That data came straight from Dr. Banner." She sounded worried, if only ever-so-slightly. Worried – what? That Banner was lying to SHIELD? That Tony had figured out SHIELD was lying to him?

"Perhaps," Loki suggested idly, his voice like silk over steel, whispering into Tony's ear, "you are simply falling short of the mark. Consider your inadequacies, mortal. You rely upon drugs to stimulate your mind," Tony found his eyes flicking toward the coffee mug, "drugs to soothe your mind," he'd slipped the pills down the drain again today, "guess-work and prayer. You seek to oppose a _God_ – do you think I cannot see all your ends?"

_Hallucination_, Tony chanted to himself. _Hallucination_. It had to be. Loki was not here, didn't care – he had not come back to curse him again, he was too busy hanging out in Asgard, conquering new territory –

"God of Lies," Loki reminded him, a smile in his voice. "Do you truly believe I cannot hear each one you so desperately tell yourself?"

"Tony?"

He glanced up, caught Natasha's gaze, snapped. "Tell him to send it again, then, I'm obviously not capable of understanding it." Looked back down. He'd picked up the coffee mug at some point – when had that happened? The outline of his reflection stared back at him from the dark black liquid.

"Maybe you're just tired."

"This is not exactly the first time I've pulled shitty hours, Romanoff."

"I know. And I appreciate everything you're doing – we all do. But you need to hurry up and finish so that I can kill you."

"What?" He looked over at her, nearly giving himself whiplash from turning his head so fast. Was she - ? The only reason she'd be _admitting_ it would be if it didn't matter anymore. His heart raced – he wanted a gun, he should have taken a gun, but shit, she was ten feet away, he wanted the _armour_ –

She frowned at him, her eyes suspicious. "What is it?"

"You said – "

"That you need to get more sleep," she repeated, gentler. "You're a genius, Tony, but even geniuses make mistakes when sleep deprived."

Fuck. _What had she actually said?_

"I," he faltered. What did he do? He couldn't trust her. She was going to _kill him_.

"Are you having symptoms?" she asked him calmly. Unusually calmly. She only got this gentle, this calm, when she was _working_ – so what was this? "If your medication isn't good enough..."

Medication. Right.

How had he forgotten? Even more a moment? _Shit, shit, shit. _Natasha was not trying to kill him. _Natasha was not trying to kill him_. "It's working fine," he lied automatically.

"You're more erratic than usual," she said. Her tone was so non-judgemental it was hard to tell there _was_ tone. "If your symptoms are returning, then SHIELD can help."

"What, you're a super-secret agency on the run from your evil robotic overlord, half your heroes dead, but you've still got psychiatrists on staff?" Tony scoffed, and forced himself to turn back to the computer. The fake data – it _had_ to be faked, he was _not_ making mistakes – was still sitting there on his screen, taunting him. Maybe she wasn't planning on killing him, but she certainly wasn't trustworthy.

"Even in the field, there are things we can do to help."

He laughed at that, because she'd just handed him the perfect way to distract her. "Who is 'we'? You? Romanoff, you couldn't even tell that Barton was mind-controlled."

Stillness, from behind him. The apartment heating kicked on suddenly, humming as it did so, and Tony jumped in his chair, turned. He half-expected to find her right behind him, looming over at him like some sort of grim reaper, and he had to suppress another twinge of surprise when he saw she hadn't moved. She looked like a statue. Untouchable. Well, as far as imposters went, she _was_ good, he had to give her that –

No. He shook his head. She wasn't an imposter, she wasn't _trying_ to pretend to be the same Natasha.

"The Scepter?" he asked her, affecting carelessness. It didn't matter if she saw through it or not. "Blue glowing stick? It takes over people's minds. Floods serotonin and dopamine, lights the nucleus accumbens up like fireworks are going off, deadens the amygdalae. Boom, instant minion – brain intact, but completely loyal to their new _raison d'être_. I got a full range of scans when Selvig – yeah, he was mind-controlled, too – set up the Tesseract on top of Stark Tower to open the portal, but I guess you wouldn't know, NYC being nuked and all that. Although I'd've thought you'd notice the magically glowing blue eyes of doom," he finished derisively.

"Barton was wearing sunglasses," she said quietly. "Excuse me." She went into the bathroom and half-closed the door. He waited, but there was just more silence; she didn't turn on a tap or make any other sounds. Well, what was he expecting? For her to break down in tears? She'd be a pretty shitty assassin if she could fall to pieces so easily.

He just had to hope he'd distracted her sufficiently for enough time. A few more days and he'd be finished coding the Trifecta Virus. A few more days...

"You're going to have to decide who to trust sometime," Steve said quietly. "You can't distrust everybody."

"Watch me," Tony mumbled, and turned back to his coding.

* * *

**NOW**

"Do you mind if I speak to Steve for a moment, Reed?" Stephen appeared in the doorway, his cloak managing to billow out behind him imperiously. Steve wondered how he did it. Somehow, the strange mode of dress looked less weird on him than it did on Anthony – rather like how Thor managed to look normal wearing armour and a bright red cape.

"_Please_," Steve mumbled under his breath. Undergoing all the diagnostics that Reed had insisted on had been exhausting – not the tests themselves, which were over and done in about five minutes, but trying to get useful answers out of Reed. Without Sue around to translate, Reed's science-babble became so difficult to penetrate that Steve was starting to regret ever getting irritated at Bruce and Tony for lapsing into 'English'. They were nowhere _near_ this bad. Steve had been attempting to pry answers out of Reed for two hours, now, and he still had no idea what Reed and Anthony had done to the serum, or when it might be back to normal.

"Oh, sure," Reed said, still typing at his computer keyboard.

"Alone," Stephen specified patiently.

Reed stopped typing and actually looked up at them – well, sort of. It seemed like he never actually looked anybody in the eye. "Hmm? Oh, very well..."

"Trust me, my friend," Stephen said, utterly serious, and Reed actually threw him a sharp look as he left – feet and body first, and hands and head following after a few seconds when he finally finished typing.

"What is it?" Steve asked Stephen, after the door shut.

Stephen smiled. "I thought you might like this back." He made one of those gestures that Anthony had been using earlier, and out of thin air appeared the piece of U that Steve had been carrying around. Steve caught it as it began to fall.

"Thanks," Steve said. It was a bit surprising – so Stephen _had_ been willing to help somewhat after all, at least enough to deliver this. Had he also been the one to decontaminate it? The weight of it in his hand wasn't reassuring – it was another reminded of everything that was still wrong, even if they did manage to find Tony alive and well – but he was glad to have it back. U deserved that much care, at least.

But it also probably wasn't why Stephen had come here – not if he wanted to talk alone. "Is there something else?"

The sorcerer didn't answer directly. Instead, he took a long look at Steve, and then the jewel on his amulet – the same jewel that Anthony had embedded into his faceplate – floated upward. Crystal blinked like an eyelid, and Steve flinched back – but when he looked again, the gem was just a gem, albeit one that seemed to gleam oddly in the bright lights of the room.

"Tony did good work, warding you," Stephen said as the gem returned to the amulet. "A full suite – protection from radiation, unstable gravity, airborne poisons and deficiencies... enchantments, compulsions, transmutations and transformations – his spell-work, at least, is faultless."

"That's... good to know," Steve ventured – even if Stephen didn't _sound_ very approving. Anthony had gone hyper-focused when he'd started casting spells at Steve, and surrounded by the glow of magic, Steve hadn't wanted to interrupt him to ask what he'd been doing. But by the time Anthony was finished – a full ten hours later – he'd clearly been exhausted, and the one question that Steve _had_ ventured hadn't gotten much of a response before Anthony had tottered to his feet and over to a cot to sleep it off.

"The Infinite Embassy is a meeting place for anyone who is unearthly-yet-of-earth," Stephen said abruptly. "Tony _might_ be able to get you in as a guest, but assuming you are set on this – "

"_Yes_."

" – then you would do well to have some power of your own." Stephen flicked his fingers again and clenched his fist around another conjured object – a jewel? "Of all the precious artefacts within my keeping, _this_ was the one my mind kept returning to when I sought some way to aid you. I must confess I have some serious misgivings about placing it in your hands."

"What is it?"

Stephen eyed him. "You wouldn't have the faintest idea, I suppose." He held it out reluctantly. A jewel, and _what _a jewel – it was something like an emerald, but egg-shaped, and its curved surface was so smooth that it couldn't have been made naturally. Light shimmered over its surface – light from _within_ it, not unlike the gem on Stephen's amulet. But whereas the amulet's gem was unsettling, this was just a glowing jewel. Steve held out his hand for it, and Stephen dropped it into his palm, and –

_TruthConcernGuiltDefendDefendDefend –_

The sudden shock of knowledge made his fingers go lax, and the stone slipped between them; reflexes, dulled by the lack of the serum but still present, kicked in, and he grabbed the stone – and then ended up half-juggling both it and the piece of U between his hands. Between one catch and the next, the extra _sense_ disappeared, leaving him blind again. For a moment it had been like having the serum working fully – except _better_; not just able to notice things about somebody else, but able to put it all together, to know what they really meant –

"Its simplest power," Stephen said, "is to read souls. Useful, where you're going - but that is the least of its abilities. Beware, however; it is not a truth-detection spell, and although the gem itself is infallible within its limits, you would be wrong to think that the same applies to its wielder."

"What... is it?" Steve asked again, staring down at the gem and marvelling. He wasn't quite sure what had triggered the information – but he felt like he could bring it back, again, if he wanted.

"A very good question, and not one that I can answer with any certainty," Stephen said, strolling over to the screens that Reed had been typing at, and pulling off one glove so he could navigate the touch interface. "The most popular legend is that it's a fragment of a once all-powerful god, who committed suicide out of despair."

"Not... God."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not." Stephen shrugged. "I'm not the man to ask about that question, Cap."

It felt strange to be addressed so familiarly by somebody that he'd only met the day before, and stranger still to be addressed so by someone wearing that getup; Steve felt like the man should have been as peculiarly formal as Thor.

"The serum's starting to have an effect on your cells again," Stephen noted, flicking through medical readouts. "And not at the disquieting rate that Reed measured before. That's good."

"I really didn't understand any of it when he explained it to me," Steve confessed.

Stephen laughed. "A not uncommon reaction, with Reed. You were dying. They attempted to give the serum a kick-start, but overdid it – have you been ill, recently? Exposed to some magical malady in the past few weeks, perhaps?"

"Extremis."

Stephen's eyebrows shot up. "That would do it," he agreed. "Essentially, the serum was _already_ kick-started, due to beating out that foe – not enough to save you from the radiation, but enough to tip the balance that when they exposed you to further Vita-14.5, the side-effects started veering off toward Hulk levels."

"Oh."

"Yes, quite. So they hit you with a massive dose of gamma-blockers before it was too late to do anything about it. Of course, that _completely_ compromised your immune system, although fortunately the serum had already taken care of the radiation poisoning. Under normal circumstances – such as they are –you'd be living the rest of your life in a bubble. But as there's another _you_ running around, with the serum in his veins already... well, a few transfusions, and here you are, with at least a regular immune system. From these readings, I suspect the transfused serum will be fully integrated within the week, if you manage to avoid doing anything too stupid in that time."

"Yes, Doctor," Steve said, spreading the irony on thickly.

"I'm not sure if giving you that," he pointed at the gem in Steve's hand, still glowing, "will aid you in that endeavour – but it well might. Do _not_ let it go. Do not trade it away. No doubt Stark will think that there are some beings who could be trusted with it – but you will have to decide that for yourself. Do _not_ give it to Stark."

"If a – demon – comes after it, I might not be able to stop it," Steve said, still somewhat tripping over the idea of being about to visit a place where literal, physical demons would be waiting to bargain with.

He was not holding a piece of God. He was _not_. Though somehow, the thought that he was holding part of a dead alien's corpse didn't make him feel much better. That might have been because, gem or no, he was still holding _something_ from a corpse – the piece of U, in his other hand.

"No one will try to take it from you within the Embassy – not by force. They'll probably try to seduce it away from you, though, if they know you have it," Stephen said. "The first rule of the Embassy is to come in peace. The only ones who break _that_ rule are those who wouldn't mind being wiped from existence."

"Who enforces it?"

"The Living Tribunal. No," Stephen said, perhaps reading the look on Steve's face, "also not God. He's just – how did Mephisto put it? 'The biggest kid on the playground. If he knows the principal, he's not telling.'"

_Mephisto? _Hearing that a devil believed in God was unsettling.

"The wards upon that gem would frustrate the most experienced magicians on Earth," Stephen continued. "Even Gods aren't likely to notice its power. Keep it out of sight and you should be fine. If you let someone see it, though... well, you won't have trouble within the Embassy. But you might find yourself in hot water once you leave."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"It can find souls, read souls, attack souls, and trap them. And Cap – it _likes_ doing that last one. If you're not careful with it, it'll trap _you_. Stick to the finding and reading – incidentally, the two powers that are least likely to get it noticed."

"I'll – do that," Steve said, closing his fingers about it more tightly. Souls. Sure, he'd always believed in souls – but he'd never thought of them to be something almost tangible, something like – like mere flesh and bones. One's immortal soul was one's own, to damned or brightened by that individual's deeds, not something somebody else could _take_ – not outside of myths and nightmares. Only now, apparently, it was.

Nobody but God should have this power. Certainly not Steve. He was just a kid from Brooklyn – he had no business with it. Stephen should be the one to go – why _wasn't_ Stephen going with Anthony? He was, at least, another sorcerer – Steve was just a guy, one who didn't even have the serum to fall back on at the moment.

"Good luck, Captain," said Stephen, abandoning the computer and pulling his glove back on. He came over to clap Steve on the shoulder, briefly. "For all our sakes."

Steve turned the gem over in his hand as Stephen left, and wondered.

* * *

**THEN**

"It won't be instantaneous," Tony announced. Natasha was doing exercises in the corner again – crunches? Leg-lifts? Every time he glanced over, it was like a brand new work-out video. All that was missing was the peppy music. Instead there was an annoying hum, like a fly, although he was pretty sure that wasn't _actually_ there – unless she was _trying_ to mess with him. But after she'd questioned him two days ago, he hadn't dared mention it. Not when she was already suspicious.

"What is?"

"The virus. Its first priority has to be to spread – we're talking about taking down a world-wide system, of course its first priority has to be to spread. If you can upload it to key nodes, it'll be able to do that a lot faster. I can't identify those without a connection – "

"We connect, we're detected, we're dead." Oooh. That sounded like something out of a spy movie. Did she watch spy movies? Real Natasha didn't, at least not so far as Tony knew; they hadn't exactly been having movie nights. Unless they were, back home – well, they wouldn't be _now_, they'd be in full-on crisis mode.

It all came back to the portal tech, and how it worked – or didn't. It could bypass his cloak to at least some extent...

Who knew, maybe this Natasha didn't watch anything – it was Clint who always had the television on whenever he happened to be around one (which, Stark Tower, so _all the time_); he was a TV junkie.

"We're already connected," he pointed out, swivelling his chair back and forth. "There're cameras in every hall. Connection."

"You think you can actually poke around in its systems without getting its attention?"

"Yes." Probably. Yeah, most likely. She hadn't asked if he _would_.

She studied him. "It's too dangerous. Dr. Banner's tried it before. The only reason he got away was because... well."

"I'm sorry, who is the expert in AIs here?" he asked, exasperated. He liked Bruce, even if his presence fucked with the Tower's cloak. Hell, he liked him well enough that he hadn't kicked him out of the Tower despite that. But Tony was at least a _bit_ of a realist, and while Bruce was damn good, he was not up to matching JARVIS in a game of catch-me-if-you-can, hacker-style.

"That's why we can't risk you," Natasha retorted calmly. "Are you finished, then?"

"It's about as complete as the data you gave me about the portals," he smiled. "Which is to say – completely workable, but not actually present on this computer. What _are_ you trying to hide about the portals, anyway?" The fly buzzed _right in his fucking ear_ and he whipped his head around to glare at it – there were no papers of any sort in sight, and he was pretty sure his shitty computer equipment would break if he tried to use any part of it as a fly swatter – but it had already buzzed off and hid somewhere else, anyway. Damn it.

Natasha raised an eyebrow at him. "SHIELD verified that it was the correct data when I asked."

"So you're asking me to believe that SHIELD is lying to you, instead of you lying to me?" he asked skeptically.

"Maybe they thought you'd try to make a portal back to your world. SHIELD does not necessarily have the greatest... faith... these days, in my abilities." Even, neutral – she should have been a businesswoman; she'd have made a fortune. "But everyone better is dead."

"What, they _actually think_ you wouldn't be able to keep an eye on me?" That was almost as far-fetched as the idea that there had actually been somebody _better_ than her employed by SHIELD.

"Our version of you created the AI that is now dictator over Earth," she retorted. "You have an arc reactor. Some things stay the same."

JARVIS wouldn't have. He wasn't even sure JARVIS _could_ have. But he did have an arc reactor, she was right about that much.

It didn't change facts.

"She's lying," Steve said quietly.

"I know," Tony replied.

"As soon as your virus can _distract_ ULTRON, at the very least, we'll send you home. I promise you that." She smiled, a small, unfriendly thing. "SHIELD is far too afraid of keeping you to try it, and far too afraid of your world's Dr. Banner to try anything else. No one will keep you here any longer than the barest minimum, nor harm you when you go."

"That portal data was the price. You agreed to it."

"I'll take it up with Hill again – strongly. But Tony... we need that virus."

Lying. Liar. Lies.

"By morning," Tony promised her with a sigh. By morning. He could figure out what to do from there.

* * *

The next morning, he actually managed to catch their mysterious supplier. For fourteen days – had it been fourteen days? He had slept eight times, typed 78,514 lines of finished code, and run 1241 simulations, on the 'portal data' and his own work – but he wasn't certain it had been fourteen days. Damn it, he needed to wear a heart monitor like Bruce did, something beeping all the time – something to keep time with. Except he still wouldn't know how much time had passed between each heartbeat... maybe he should just get a watch. Actually, he was pretty sure he had a watch. Somewhere. Had he been wearing it when SHIELD had grabbed him?

He was in the bathroom, pondering the straight razor. Half his face, the left half, was covered in lather. The other half was bare, of both lather and beard; too late now to regret it. He'd look even more an idiot with half a Van Dyke than he would without any of one.

"It's not much of a disguise," Yinsen murmured. Always guiding, always gently correcting – sometimes Tony wondered how he could even be real, how anyone could pass through enough fire to burn away all their impurities like that.

"It's not for that."

"No? Just to buy time, then." Tony stared back at himself in the mirror and nodded. He didn't have Natasha's kit, or her skill to use it – facial recognition software would give him away every time. The point was to avoid lending anyone the processing power of the casual human observer, who might see a guy, 5'9" (in shoes, damn it), brown hair, 40s, Van Dyke – surely an unpopular style of facial hair in this place – and think, _Hey..._

The apartment door opened. Tony froze.

The bathroom door was mostly-closed. He leaned from side to side, but there was no way to view the other door through the gap in this one using the mirror – abandon subtlety, then. "You do have a certain flare for it," Yinsen said fondly, and Tony took that as enough of a blessing to yank the door open and lean out, shaving cream and all. At least he was wearing a shirt. And pants. Pants were good. The shirt was better, even if it had a cord sticking out from under it.

The SHIELD agent – she had to be a SHIELD agent; otherwise Natasha would have dropkicked her and duct-taped her to the headboard to have some wicked fun times already. Now, that was a thought, one fun and disturbing and – off track. He was off track. The agent was... non-descript was a good descriptor, and probably the one she had been aiming for; hell, pull the hood up on that shapeless parka, and she could pass for a guy, too, easily. Very drab. Much like the apartment.

"Hi!" Tony said brightly.

Both Natasha and the new agent glanced at him – it felt more like they were rolling their eyes at him – and looked away again, like... fencers. Or something else. Natasha was holding an envelope, and since she wasn't handing it over, it had to have come from the contact.

Who said, "Good luck," and slipped out the door. Natasha flipped the deadbolt.

"We're moving?" Tony asked, interested. Natasha tossed him a sharp glance, but – _really_. It wasn't that hard to figure out that somebody had been stocking the freezer on those occasions that he'd been in the shower, and that envelope was a lot skinnier than any of the micro-waved meals Natasha had been forcing down his throat.

Ah, shitting. How he had not missed it.

He gave her a _Please, I'm Tony Stark_ look, and she shook her head – denial and amusement combined, well look at that. "You might want to finish shaving first."

He'd been shaving?

Automatically, he put one hand up to his face, and got a handful of shaving cream for his trouble. "Crap," he mumbled. Shit. Shit, shit – why was he _shaving_?

"Anonymity," Steve said. If a voice could have arms folded across its chest, then Steve's would. Steve himself probably did. "Though I'd've called it paranoia."

"Apparently, Dr. Banner is impressed with your work," Natasha said, putting the envelope down onto the table. Tony stared at it. What? When had Bruce even had time to _look_ at his work? He'd only finished a few hours ago. And he hadn't told Natasha. Had he?

"You told me," Steve said gently.

"Blabbing all my fucking secrets!" Tony threw up his hands in frustration. A blob of shaving cream flew off and hit the roof.

Natasha looked unimpressed. "I'm not cleaning that off."

It didn't _matter_, even if _she_ knew – unless Bruce was extremely close... but he could be, couldn't he? Surely there wasn't anything that ULTRON could do about him, if Bruce didn't want anything to be done. Unless he tried exterminating populations until Bruce handed himself over, but apparently whatever caused SHIELD's cold fear of him also kept him from caring about _that_, unless unless unless –

Fuck, he couldn't trust anyone.

"Tony..."

"I'm going to – shave," he huffed, and stalked back into the bathroom. It wasn't as nearly satisfying when his attempt to slam the door only resulted in it bouncing off of the cord and the handle thwacking into his back. Jesus. Whose shitty idea was it to build a bathroom so small that you had to close the door in order to have room to stand at the sink?

If he stared in the mirror as he shaved, he could concentrate on the task, even with the envelope outside calling to him. The thing that too many liars didn't realize – lies were so often just as revealing as the truth. It was probably a science thing, as in, they didn't do enough of it, so they didn't realize that wrong answers were still _answers_. One path of thought led to another. _Bruce_ was a scientist, though, and a liar – Tony wondered what he'd come up with now.

Having no beard at all made him look – strange. There was the faint shadow of his Van Dyke, but the rest of his skin was so hairless it was almost embarrassing. Good thing it didn't matter so much what Natasha thought of him anymore. All that mattered was what _Bruce_ thought, whether Bruce would buy _Tony's_ lies. It was something of a gamble. After all, Tony hadn't bought Bruce's.

But then, Bruce probably didn't realize he was trying to trick an expert in his own field. One of his many, many fields. Or that, in Tony's case, this world's time-lead wasn't _quite_ so great as it seemed – and that, correspondingly, Tony wasn't _quite_ so far behind.

He grinned. In the mirror, it looked boyish, and he made a face. That, too, looked boyish. Jesus, this was why he'd grown the beard; forty-something and he still couldn't get any damn respect. No, that was a lie. He'd grown the beard because it was awesome, and he was awesome, and awesome things were always more awesome together. See: fire and alcohol.

Portals and engineers.

He saluted Steve, just out of sight – _always_ just out of sight, but he didn't have to be visible for his sigh to be heard clearly. Although the never-in-sight thing was getting irritating. There were too many things clogging up his ears already.

Natasha shoved the door open, and the handle into the small of his back. He yelped and stumbled against the washstand; the razor, still in his hand – oops – clattered into the sink; he plunged his hand into the soapy water and retrieved it, although not without slicing a finger open in the process. Pinkish drops dripped from his hand to the floor.

"We're leaving. Now."

"What, now?" he yelped. He was sockless. Not pantless, or shirtless – points for that – but, still, what? "Where?"

"Doesn't matter. Out, now." She actually had a grip on his arm and was dragging him out, dragging him over to – oh, hell, no, he batted away her hands and made the change over to the battery cord himself instead. "Coat. Shoes," she ordered, as she fetched her own – and oh, hey, he hadn't realized she'd had a gun there, although he probably should have suspected. Well, that was something to consider -

She tossed shoes at him; he shoved his feet inside. So what had set her off? Some sort of warning? She'd said they weren't leaving. They couldn't have uploaded the virus already. Bruce _might_ have had time to check it, if he were being extremely cursory about it – if they were in a particular hurry, for some reason – but unless they'd uploaded it to a central node it wouldn't have unpacked fast enough to call for this sort of response.

Of course, they had Banner, who apparently was capable of walking right up to a central node... sloppy, sloppy, all 'round. Not the sort of thing that would work with his design – at least, the _first_ layer of the design. So why would they have deliberately sabotaged it?

Answer: they hadn't. This was something else.

He was of no more use.

_"After it is completed, he will set you free."_

_"No, he won't."_

"No. She won't," Yinsen agreed quietly.

_Fuck_.

Batteries were still in his coat pocket; the razor joined them. He could slice up his hands some more; that didn't matter. Natasha tossed him sunglasses and put on a pair, herself; they were the actual _dark_ kind, making seeing indoors a chore, and he stumbled as she hustled him out the door. He should have grabbed a gun – he should have grabbed a gun from the car two weeks ago and just _shot_ her, as she'd stepped back out from the pharmacy; she'd made a perfect target and he'd missed it. God _damn_ her, she was always lying and he _always fucking fell for it –_

The garage was still cold, but although he vaguely registered it, he didn't really feel it. She keyed the car to life and the garage door opened, slowly, like it was protesting the movement. "Anthony Edward Stark," it said, and he startled, badly, nearly sliced his finger open on the razor. "Today you are going to die."

At least, he thought morbidly, it reminded him that doing up his seatbelt was not actually a good idea with what he was about to try. He unzipped the duffle further and exposed the battery instead, grabbing the scissors he'd pilfered from the first aid kit instead, along with the flashlight. He had to suppress a grin at the logo on it this time. Oh, _Justin._

Scissors made excellent screwdrivers, when applied properly. Natasha looked over at him as they drove along, with a speed surprisingly slow for all of her earlier haste. "What are you doing?"

"Do you have any idea how long these things last?" he grunted, and then considered the car. "Is this invisible?" The Helicarrier's panels were shit at close range, _but_...

The hum of the engine sounded like _diediediediedie._

"Effectively," she said shortly. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to give it something better than such a limited lifetime," he snapped, before sticking the flashlight in his mouth, and _ohgod_ why had he done that – he spat it out again and tried to avoid gagging.

"Tony, this is a bad idea."

"All my bad ideas are great ideas."

"You're going to hurt Natasha. You're going to hurt yourself, too – "

"So long as you know it won't kill you."

"I am extremely concerned with my lifespan, _okay_?" Tony snapped – he wasn't sure at which of them.

It didn't matter. He was done dismantling the battery, and the flashlight – and _oh_, Justin. So appallingly bad at making things explode when they were supposed to explode.

So fiendishly good at making things explosive that weren't supposed to be.

He slapped the strip from the flashlight into a key crevice on the battery, and turned to playing with the interior again, doing nothing, obviously fidgeting. Fidgeting was not suspicious behaviour, for him – sitting _still_ was suspicious behaviour, for him. They car began to slow – they were coming to another intersection.

Tony estimated their time, and tightened a particular screw _just so_ as to apply pressure to the right spot –

They weren't stopping at the intersection. There were no lights, anyway. They'd made it out of the downtown core of Refugeesville, Bumfuck, but there were still people around, a few of whom looked at the car as it went past. None near the intersection, thankfully enough, none to get caught up too close. Hopefully they wouldn't be able to grab him. He had to make it somewhere far enough away, had to hide – had to get some of his own goddamn _tech_. He needed JARVIS on his side again. The suit didn't fly half so well without him.

Steve was still protesting in his ear; as the car slowed, he even managed to slightly drown out the sound of the engine.

_Diediediediedie_

She wasn't stopping, just turning. Tony reached for the cord and began to unscrew it, _praying_.

Natasha – bless her, Natasha – kept driving, even as she turned to him again in astonishment. Turned the wheel. He had the cord free. Door opened, and he threw himself forcibly from the car; she grabbed at him but didn't have the angle to get leverage to hold him back, and _okay ow_ tumbling from a car, even one that was moving slowly, onto cement _hurt_. He scrambled to his knees and from there to his feet. The car screeched to a halt and Natasha was already out the other side – _shit_. If she was already out of the car then the small explosion produced by the battery wouldn't kill her, wouldn't even _touch_ her – the only thing he had was a slight head start. He ran, hearing the _pop_ behind him as the battery blew – and then a giant hand – ha, like he hadn't been groped by one of _those_ before – swatted him forward and to the ground.

The sky rang like a choir of angels with trumpets had descended.

Tony stared up at the clouds, dazed.

"Get up," Steve said. "Tony, you have to get up."

Up? He was down?

Something was burning – something foul – ah. The car. Well, what remained of the car. Right. There had been gas tanks in the back. Oops.

He rolled over. Getting to his feet seemed to be a bit beyond him. He did make a good go of it – really, he did – but the world was sort of... spinning. Hazy? No, just spinning. People were standing and pointing at him, he realized. There was a niggling sense of alarm in the back of his head. Something he should be concerned about.

One at a time. He focused on the closest man – admittedly, a hundred meters or so away – first. His voice seemed to carry clearly across the distance; he could have been standing right next to Tony, speaking into his ear. "That is the man we must kill. Once he has died, the end of the universe may begin."

_Shit_. Tony tried to stand again – panicked, overbalanced, fell over _again_, shit – third time was the charm, and he staggered to his feet. His ears were ringing. That didn't stop him from hearing what they were _saying_, oh, god, he needed to get out of sight. They were going to kill him. They were going to kill Pepper, and Rhodey, and JARVIS and everyone else. Oh, god. He really had failed Steve, in the end.

"No, Tony, you didn't," Steve said, but _fuck_ of course he said that, _fuck fuck fuck_ –

Something with red hair was lying in the middle of the road; it caught his eye as he glanced around wildly. Romanoff. The imposter. Of course. Fuck, she'd driven him out here and left him to these things – her arm moved, slowly.

"We will find you, hunt you to the ground, and cut your false heart out," the man watching him said. He was coming toward them, now, along with the others, at a jog – fifty metres –

Tony ran. Stumbled, really, more than a run. He wasn't sure where he was going; everything was still so dizzy. There was somewhere away, away from the people – an alley, a space between two buildings... except it _wasn't_. Eyes loomed up out of the darkness, whispers. "He has passed here. Run. Run. Run. Catch him. Die." Feet, legs outstretched, against the pavement, ready to trick him – he couldn't see. He tore the sunglasses from his face and light greeted him, far too bright, but he had to see, had to find a way _out_ –

"Please, listen to me!" Steve begged him, but there was no _time_. A door, he needed an open door – there, that one would do. Fuck, if he had his gauntlets he could just blow holes through the walls. If he had his _suit_, he could just wipe them all off the face of the Earth, prevent them from carrying it through.

"These other things you're hearing, they're hallucinations," Steve said, as Tony shoved the door closed and tried to find another one. More doors. He needed more doors between him and them – maybe then he could hold them off long enough to engineer a way out of this.

"A lot of people want to kill me, Steve," he panted. Stairwell – good choice. He tried it.

"Nobody wants to kill you," Steve said, sounding like he was trying to be reassuring – but then he ruined it by adding, "It's in your head. You haven't been taking your medication – "

" – because they can track me with it," he panted, and stopped dead on the stairs. Track. Tracker. _Shit_. He scrabbled at his shirt, pulling it up, and cutting open yet another finger as he grabbed the razor – _shit_, he needed a mirror for this, but he didn't have one. Touch memory would have to do. There, at very back of the reactor housing – he switched hands and dug the razor beneath it, hoping it would hold. He didn't really need any more sharp metal shards floating around near his heart.

"You'd better hope you don't have _any_ floating around there," Steve worried. "If you hallucinated those clean x-rays..."

"I'm not – they are _trying to kill me_!" Tony shouted, and the foreign object popped out with more force than needed, bounced off of one step and fell to another. He nearly dropped the razor in relief, and _did_ lower it too much; the feel of its edge scraping along the inside of the housing made him shudder all over. He pocketed the razor again and picked up the thing that SHIELD had attached to him. It was small, integrated – biomedical-grade, likely. Not easily destroyed. Pitch it, then – but the thought of getting near to a window made his hands shake, and he dropped it again. _Shit_. He had to get out of this building. But if he did, they would find him.

He was _so _dead.

"Maybe you can't trust SHIELD," Steve said quietly, after a moment, as Tony stood there and tried to think. God, it was so hard to _think_. "But the regular people outside don't have anything to do with this."

They were going to kill him. Something _boomed_ outside, close, too close, and Tony flinched against the interior wall of the stairwell, dropping the tracker. Shit. That was a sonic boom – a quinjet? If so, not one bothering with stealth capability. Almost blindly, he took the last few stairs to the next landing and tried the door. It was locked – something electronic. He pried at the control panel until it came off, grabbing at wires and rearranging them – but futilely. Of course. No power – no, he had power. He fished out the flashlight batteries and tucked them into the circuit – there. Not much, but enough to get the door lock to disengage. He shoved it open and manually flipped the deadlock on the other side.

There was silence, in here. Stillness. He looked around. It was, so far as he could see, typical for an office building – a too-narrow hall, bad carpeting... he wouldn't have let a hallway like this within a mile of the plans for Stark Tower. _Pepper_ wouldn't have let it within a mile of Stark Tower.

His hands were shaking as he tried the first door. It was unlocked – but the room it led to was bare, stripped. There wasn't any furniture – there wasn't even any lightbulbs. And there were windows – he shut it behind him, and turned just in time to see Steve kick down the stairwell door.

"Stark?" Steve stared. "_Damn_. You don't have an arc reactor." He was stepping forward, putting one gentle hand on Tony's arm. "We need to get him an arc reactor - "

Steve was here.

Steve was okay.

Steve was _alive_.

"You're alive," Tony said. His voice sounded very strange to his own ears. Maybe his hearing was still confused from the explosion, or from people shouting threats at him all day. He let himself be guided back into the stairwell – Steve was here, Steve would have a _plan_, and Tony suddenly felt tired like he hadn't been in months, worn out and exhausted from sheer, giddy relief.

"SHIELD lies, Stark, you should know that." Steve's face was set in the same sort of expression that it'd had when he'd tossed the Phase II prototype down in front of Fury. Despite all the months since then, his tone was the same, too – brusque, untrusting, cold – and Tony felt obscurely hurt... unless he actually _had _hallucinated the clear x-rays, and that was just the shrapnel. Steve turned his head slightly to the side and said, "We need a spare. Bring the suit here."

"I don't _have_ the suit here," Tony said, the sharp edge of terror beginning to reform at the reminder. Good. It would keep his brain sharp, keep him _thinking_ – thinking about relevant matters, and not on Steve's strange behaviour.

"Maybe you should sit down – the more you rest, the less strain you're going to put on the shrapnel," Steve said, crossing over to him, and Tony let himself slump back against the wall, and down to the floor.

"They weren't hallucinations," he muttered.

"This is a bad time to test that." Steve's voice grew suddenly, bitterly cold as he followed this up with, "You're hallucinating?"

What? That wasn't fair – "You're the one who's been saying I'm hallucinating! I'm _not_!"

"You are. Great, another problem." Fuck, why was Steve constantly changing his mind about this? Did he have a concussion? He was going from worried one moment to frigid the next –

Boots _clomped_ on the stairs and paused, while Tony's fight-or-flight reflex kicked into high gear – he stayed only because of Steve's firm grip on his arm. But it was just the suit. Or, well, _a_ suit; this one didn't have much of a paint job. Neither did Steve, actually; Tony looked between the two, comparing. Steve was wearing all black, plain clothes – not built for winter, but built to be _generic_ nonetheless... a far cry from his usual spangles. It contrasted sharply with his bright blond hair, but, well. There were aesthetics, and then there were _aesthetics_.

Steve got up, crossed over to the suit, and fiddled with it. Panels moved, allowing him access to – to the arc reactor. Right. Portable power source – always had a use for those. The easy way that Steve was fiddling with the complex components of the suit was actually rather sexy – not that Steve-back-home, young-Steve, not-quite-so-lost-anymore-Steve, was inept with technology despite how much catching up he'd had to do, but this was a step beyond. Back home, Steve wouldn't let Tony build him a suit – not that Tony had offered, but if he _had,_ Steve wouldn't have – yet here he was with one made for somebody of his height, and he was _at least_ familiar enough with it to disassemble it for parts. Tony found himself watching with something like fascination.

Perhaps Steve caught onto that. "I'm going to shut up now," he said, sounding concerned, "because I think I'm making things worse. But you are hallucinating. I think you can trust this Steve." But then he grew sharp again. "Do you need anything else to connect this?"

Hallucinations. Fuck. What had SHIELD done to him? Fuck the imposter anyway, Steve was _alive_. "No, just hand it over," he said, stretching out a hand. The weight of it dropping into his palm felt more real than anything had in months. _This_, at least, then, was probably not a hallucination. Or maybe it was – anything so real had to be suspect. He slotted the cord in and felt his heart stutter.

Oh, _yeah._ Power like metal and coconut! Way better than a car battery, than a fucking Duracell, power enough to figure out what the hell SHIELD had done, to bring him and Steve _home_. "Great," Tony gasped.

"I flew the armour here, but obviously that's not going to work to get us back," Steve said, closing the chest plate of the suit manually and coming back to lean against the wall opposite to Tony. "ULTRON's going to divert another two to get us and it out of here. It's a good thing we got your message when we did." His eyes slid sideways, to the light peeking out from Tony's shirt. "Good Lord. You cut it close, Stark."

"They were going to kill me," Tony said quietly, unable to stop himself from reaching up with one hand and covering the arc reactor. The sound of his last name, in that tone of voice, even from such a _familiar_ voice – maybe _especially_ from such a familiar voice... it played havoc with his judgement, his instincts. He struggled to push it aside. There was something... _wait_. So SHIELD_ had_ risked the secrecy of his virus to give it an initial kick?

"SHIELD does that."

But _why_? If they got it to the right server, true, it could do catastrophic damage to certain segments of ULTRON's code, but it wouldn't eliminate the world-wide issue. It would cause a temporary problem, no more. _Fuck_.

"How long until the suits get here?" Tony asked, trying – and, annoyingly, failing – to make his voice casual.

Steve tilted his head. Tony frowned at him, and then finally caught sight of the earpiece. _Of course_. "Ten minutes."

"The bug's outside," Tony muttered. "In the stairwell. SHIELD will track it – I don't know how to destroy it – "

"I stepped on it on the way in."

"That doesn't _matter_ – once they find you, they can see you anywhere," Tony shook his head. "I need a way to hide..." he climbed to his feet, held out his hand to Steve, and snapped his fingers; demanded, "Earpiece."

Steve raised one eye-brow at him. "I don't have a spare."

"Then lend me yours, I don't care," he said, peevishly – and then shuddered at the thought, because, okay, Steve had better than the world's best anti-bacterial soap flowing through his veins, but still – _ew_. Fine. Fair enough. "JARVIS," he barked, craning his head to peer around the corner of the hallway. "I need to talk to him."

"JARVIS?"

"ULTRON, whatever the fuck," Tony snapped, trying to cover the embarrassment, and perhaps the faintest touch of fear. _You're hallucinating,_ Steve had accused him. How else might his brain be affected? It was a miracle that the virus had _worked_ – on two levels, at least; the third remained to be seen. "I need – fabrication," the words got caught up in his throat. "Shit. I can't say this aloud, he'll hear - I need a lab. Office. _Somewhere_ – "

"Who might hear?" Steve was blocking the way out.

"If I tell you then he'll _definitely_ hear," Tony snapped, trying to side-stepping him – trying, and failing. He'd forgotten how much like a brick wall the man could be. "Jesus, I have gone over this a thousand times with you."

"Maybe with the Steve from your own universe, but I'm not him," Steve said firmly.

Tony let his lips quirk up; he turned away. It was true and false, both. "I can't tell him. The more people who know... SHIELD's security already has so many gaps. Fuck, he'll be taking advantage of them even more, now." He'd been gone for too long. Too much longer... maybe all he'd have to return to would be another icy, frozen world, flooded over before the stars finished going out. But he'd found Steve, _alive_. Of absolutely no use in solving the most important physics problem this side of the millennium – but gloriously, _gloriously,_ alive.

"Okay," the word was drawn out with a hint of uncertainty, "can you_ describe_ him?"

"Tall, alien, wears a lot of green and leather, fetish for horned animals – or other four-legged hoofed things," Tony made a face, because Svaldifari, _really_? He was never, _ever_ going to understand that.

Steve hesitated. "He's dead in this world."

"Eh." Not that it mattered, of course; their sight went beyond a mere three dimensions. It didn't even matter if Loki himself were not bothering to pay attention; none of the other Asgardians would be trusted, either. If Heimdallr was watching and figured it out, if Odin figured it out, if _Thor_ figured it out – Thor had loved his brother, back in the centre-of-the-universes, the _other_ centre-of-the-universes, the other aspen forest – before they'd all turned to dust, ash, and then nothing at all. If Loki was still around in _this_ set, then surely, at the centre of this universal complex, he was loved as well; Tony couldn't imagine somebody not killing him, otherwise, because fuck if every Loki ever wasn't even more annoying than Hammer – which took skill, as well as deliberate malice.

Okay, maybe he wasn't _quite_ as annoying as Hammer.

"But I make up for it in competence," Loki murmured, voice shark-like sharp.

"No, you were pretty incompetent," Tony told him, though it took effort to keep his voice even.

"Excuse me?" Steve asked.

"I mean, he was pretty incompetent – how'd he die? _Don't_ say his name, for the love of God – "

"Too late," Loki laughed. Probably a hallucination? _Possibly _a hallucination? "As if a mortal could kill me. We are strewn across the universe and wound into its bones. Have a taste of immortality and _despair_, Stark."

Fuck, he should have taken Hel up on her offer. _Fuck_. She had been so right.

"Th – his... brother, killed him," Steve explained. "After we located the Cube." He was quiet. "It was right before SHIELD nuked New York."

SHIELD.

"Right, and they have a dead bug over there, so they'll be swarming this place in force."

"Maybe if we're lucky," Steve grinned. It was an ugly look on his face, and Tony stared at it, taken aback. "They've been hiding in their rabbit-holes for weeks. I never thought I'd say this, but Stark, you've been a God-send."

_Stark, Stark_ – that twinge in his chest, fortunately or unfortunately, was definitely not the shrapnel; not with an AR hooked up.

But it wasn't like he didn't deserve it, six months and – two weeks? – since he'd left Steve for dead.

"I don't have a suit," Tony pointed out. If Steve thought he could fend off the concentrated might of SHIELD... well, diminished as it was, he probably could. But that was forgetting about Bruce, and the Hulk, and the strangely deferential way that Natasha had toward him even when he wasn't there – and the fake data. Steve's presence – ULTRON's presence – meant that Bruce had to be in on the faked data; SHIELD wouldn't have been able to get the virus uploaded at a pivotal node without Bruce (or the Hulk, too) – and if he was going to join SHIELD in lying to Tony about the virus, then Tony could hardly put faking the data past him.

Sonic booms outside – did SHIELD have more tricks up its sleeve than Tony had figured out? Of _course_ it did, but Steve had relaxed, so apparently this was not one of them. A minute later there was the heavy thump of footsteps on the stairs again, and two more suits of armour presented themselves. Steve, Tony noted belatedly, was holding onto his arm again, hard enough that it would leave bruises later.

He _could_ still bruise; could still bleed; experimentation had proved that much. "Pretty shitty immortality," he muttered to Loki, but the god didn't reply – had gone off to cause chaos elsewhere. Fucking good riddance, if only he'd _stay_ gone...

_"Tony Stark,"_ said one of the armours – the nearer one, the one in gleaming red and gold – in a near approximation of JARVIS' voice: a quarter of an octave lower, but there was still that sharp, amused formality in it, or there could have been. At the moment it was covered up by wariness, and Tony found himself covering the arc reactor with his hand again. _Don't be stupid. It won't ask for it back. It wouldn't matter if it did –_ _"I am pleased, and astonished, to make your acquaintance."_

"Everyone's pleased to meet me," Tony shrugged, and raised an eyebrow as the armours simultaneously unfolded. The gun-metal grey one – _it should have been Rhodey's_, he thought, as Steve stepped over to it – was obviously designed (at least, to anyone who knew the armours as well as he did; which was to say him, and perhaps ULTRON) for somebody taller. That... stung, a bit. _It should have been Rhodey's._ Fuck, it probably _had_ been Rhodey's retrofitted – wait – fuck, his thoughts were too damn slow. "Rhodey – is Rhodey alive?" _SHIELD lies, SHIELD lies..._

Steve turned back, his expression unreadable even before he stepped into his own armour and it closed around him – and _that_ was a weird sight. _"I am sorry, Mr. Stark,"_ ULTRON said, and some of the wariness had vanished, although no amusement had returned. _"He was killed while attempting to direct nuclear missiles away from a civilian population."_

The eyes of the retrofitted War Machine blinked back to life; its arc reactor glowed, deep in the chest housing. _"It was my fault. I should have been able to stop SHIELD before launch,"_Steve admitted baldly, regret clear even through the deliberate audio distortion on his voice.

Tony, for a tiny moment, hated him again. He made no move to step toward the other armour, although it stood ready to be reassembled – open, inviting... a trap, maybe.

_"Incorrect, Captain,"_ ULTRON corrected him, that same regret in his voice. Regret. So much like that imposter of Natasha – fuck it, could he trust either of these more than her? But it was _Steve_ – Steve. And they had not been planning on killing him, but, no – they had the armours, they could accomplish that easily... _"Forgive us, Mr. Stark. It is an old argument between us. I was overconfident in my control, and failed to secure a number of hidden missile silos before putting my ultimatum to the World Security Council... and it was I whom they sent the missiles after, heedless how many of my known servers were in heavily populated areas. Those deaths are on my conscience."_

"Pretty sure I have you all beat," Tony said into the uncomfortable silence. From the way the War Machine's head had turned, he gathered the faint impression that Steve was arguing with ULTRON on an internal comm. He wished they'd kept the argument up outside of that – he needed more information. _SHIELD lies. _He needed a database. He needed a _library_, a base, a place to put his back to the wall – he stepped up and let the suit fold itself around him. It was sluggish, not mapped to his neural network; the displays came up and they were on the opposite sides of how he had them; they didn't respond to his eye movements as fast as they should; the ever-present hum of the mobile suit contained an additional pitch that grated at the upper edge of his hearing in an extremely annoying fashion.

_"My apologies, Mr. Stark,"_ ULTRON said in his ear. _"Calibrating."_

They ran through a quick list, almost identical to the one he'd cooked up for his own suits, and when at least the test movements were less clunky – even if that stupid whining noise hadn't gone away – Tony asked casually, "So how many of these things do you have?"

_"After this morning's exercise with Dr. Banner, somewhat less than three dozen,"_ ULTRON informed him. The radio silence from Steve was condemning.

IR showed nobody in the alley outside, beyond the stairwell – why? There was too much concrete and metal for him to look around elsewhere; he couldn't see where they'd gone. But, at the least, there was nobody there now: he made a fist and broke through the wall, shattering it as easily as plaster, and revelled in it. He was not pinned down, not surrounded in rock – this _broke_, quick and easy.

_"There's a door at the bottom, you know,"_ Steve said over the radio, stern and disapproving.

"But it's all the way down there." He cleared a hole and stepped off. This suit wasn't up to the Mark VIII, or even the Mark VII – Mark IV, at the best; hands out to stabilize, and he soared up toward the blue. Free. The whine cut out, and his head felt clearer than it had in _ages_ – days, months? – perhaps than it had been since Loki had pinned him in rock.

Blue. Rayleigh scattering. Photon absorption; exiton decay – no, he could fix that. The massive cloaking devices on Stark Tower, on the GRC, were bulky, unwieldy. Roberts' ideas were shit – all physics and no engineering, useless for implementation – Lu's work, though, the re-sequencer he'd cooked up to produce artificial negative indices, using the slow-light time difference to steal enough time to make it work – that was good; this wasn't a short-range problem. No, Lu's fault was in thinking too linearly – now, out here, surrounded by sky, Tony could see the jump that had eluded him for the past month.

_"Mr. Stark, if you would turn northwards... Ms. Potts is very anxious to see you,"_ ULTRON said mildly, shattering Tony's concentration.


	5. Chapter 5

**THEN**

"So what's really been going on here?" Tony asked as they cruised along at mach two, nine klicks over eastern Montana. It was half a question for ULTRON, half a peace-offering for Steve – if he wanted to explain how it had occurred that he'd gotten stuck in this godforsaken world. Of if he just wanted to stay mad at Tony, that was... well, not cool, but. Hey.

Steve was _alive_.

Tony would, on occasion, take what he could get.

There was a noticeable pause before either of them answered, though, which made him wonder if they were discussing him. If they had, so much the better – at least Steve had had ULTRON to look out for him, and if ULTRON were anything like JARVIS – which he obviously was – then he was probably, no, _definitely_ doing a better job than anything Tony could have attempted, which made him feel a bit less like a total asshole – or so he could tell himself, at least. Finally, though, Steve radioed back, _"What did SHIELD tell you?"_

The virus' second layer – beneath the vicious code that had apparently fooled Banner, this Banner, the one that so scared SHIELD – Tony was pretty sure that his own Bruce would have been more cautious. Obviously. But the first layer had done its job as a decoy, without, hopefully, hurting ULTRON too badly – Tony absently confirmed this, a half-hour too late, oh, well – Pepper could yell at him later. The second layer had contained all of the information about SHIELD and his situation there that he could bring himself to encode: not much.

Nothing at all about his first concern – but he couldn't discuss _that_ aloud, either, for the same reason.

"That ULTRON here was doing a good impression of the unholy spawn of Hal 9000 and Skynet, come with us if you want to live, that sort of thing." That 4,459,820,000 had died in a nuclear war – and certainly the refugees had believed it. _But_.

_SHIELD lies._

_"The World Security Council chose to drop tactical nuclear weapons on the Island of Manhattan. Twelve million died in three weeks. They answered to no one but themselves – tyrants with weapons of mass destruction at their disposal, which they were willing to unleash upon their own people; tyrants susceptible to error, to fear. I thought that perhaps Mr. Stark might oppose them."_ It was ULTRON who answered; ULTRON who hesitated, and finished, _"I was wrong."_

"He couldn't?"

_"He would not try."_

Natasha – the imposter – had said that ULTRON had killed his other self. What had happened? Had he given in to the Ten Rings so completely? Had he been just _that much_, that _tiny little bit more_ of a total asshole, so that he'd pulled his head out of his ass and – what? Not shut down weapons manufacturing, the imposter had told him that much –

"Yeah, I can believe it," Tony said, two kilometers later. "So you – what? Took over the Helicarrier?"

_"And all systems – or so I thought. But I proved as fallible as they. Perhaps,"_ and he was quiet, now, so quiet that Tony could only barely hear him over the roar of the wind, _"the only difference between us is that I am not willing to use the weapons I confiscated. But it took me too long to take away their control. Given enough time, they panicked. Stark Industries locations – my brain, or so they thought – were their first targets –_" Japan had been blacked out; northern India – _the coasts_ – Germany – _"_ _– unknowing that I had largely removed myself from such locations, to prevent interference by Mr. Stark. My attempts to convince them of this were entirely futile."_

"I'm sorry." His lips felt numb.

Jesus, some days he wanted to punch himself in the face.

_"It wasn't your fault, Stark,_" Steve broke in, sounding grudging. As well he might. _"You said things worked out better in your reality."_

"Yeah." It felt like a lifetime had passed since they'd been trekking through the featureless grey mists of Helheim.

Silence on the other end. He did a loop-de-loop that spanned a couple of kilometers, let the G-forces clear his brain, and coughed. "So what since?"

_"We have been working to evacuate populations into the few remaining green zones and mitigate fall-out. As so many major population centres were targeted... I have established myself as a sort of interim emergency, world-wide government, although Captain Rogers has been working to set up local councils wherever possible. SHIELD has been... opposing such measures."_ULTRON'S voice dipped lower – a full octave below JARVIS' usual. _"Against the problems of organizing shelter, clean water, clean food, and medical relief for the remaining population, their current forces are only a minor threat – with the exception of Dr. Banner."_

"I'll bet."

_"Nonetheless, I... do not wish to underestimate them again."_

_"They've done enough damage."_

Tony had expected firmness; he wasn't prepared for the level of condemnation that Steve managed to pack into such a short sentence. Below the arc reactor, his guts churned uncomfortably – he still hadn't gotten used to eating food again, god_damn_it.

"I'd be glad to lend a hand," he murmured. Their destination popped up, highlighted in red – beyond human vision still, but within the suit's sensors. The wind-speed readings popping along with other terrain data made his mind cut to wind-shear, flexibility, eigenfrequencies: Stark Tower would've been a much greater challenge to build out here. Of course, the entire point of the Tower had been to show off what SI could do, constructing the tallest building in Manhattan in a third of the time it would have taken any contractor, powering her solely off of the AR, and generally showing of his magnificence; out here, not only was there nobody around to admire it, but there wasn't even anything to look at. The place was a godforsaken wasteland.

"Gonna paint a maple-leaf on your shield, Captain Canada?" he jeered at Steve over the comm. At least it would have been better than the unadorned silver... Steve was made for gaudy things, high ideals; dour gun-metal grey didn't suit him (hah!).

But, still. _Saskatchewan_. It was almost as bad as New Jersey.

_"We couldn't stick around in a higher population,"_ came the terse reply. _Not again_, went unsaid.

There was certainly nobody here. A nation's worth of stereotypes was embodied in these lifeless, snow-covered plains; Tony was half-expecting them to land at an igloo built by beavers. Maybe they'd have poutine – he _did_ like poutine.

Instead they landed at a squat, unhappy building made mostly from concrete, which ULTRON outlined on the HUD; it had only the barest of sensor signatures. There was no road in or out – how did they avoid attracting attention when air-lifting in supplies? It was way easier to hide secret compounds in among a city of a million people – he should know, even if he never got to visit the place except by VR.

_"At first,"_ ULTRON said in response to Tony's rambled musings on this subject, while Steve hauled the door open with the force of the suit's hydraulics behind him, _"we did have some difficulty, Mr. Stark, but our establishment here is now fully self-sufficient."_ There was a note of satisfaction about him. _"It runs off of many of the same principles under which the International Space Station_ _was designed, improved to allow for independence and to take full advantage of the reactors' power outputs."_

Hydroponics? So it was an underground installation – not that he had anything against those, so long as he didn't have to live in them – the elevator inside the bunker was even more intimidating than he'd expected, though, went down far further, and then it branched off for them to be walking further again; this was a fortress intended to withstand against a direct nuclear strike. "Has it?" A stupid question – it'd be obvious – well, maybe not. They'd not be taking this entrance if it were the one that had come under attack; but if the tunnels ran sufficiently far north or west...

_"No. But we are not yet certain that they are not holding out some final weapons cache."_ There was an edge of grief in his voice, sharp and true, truer than Natasha's – than not-Natasha's – had been.

Tony shook his head – not from disagreement, but because that damned fly from the apartment had apparently clung onto him long enough to stowaway in the suit, and it was now whining at him from just – behind – his left ear – he hit the latches and popped the suit off, batting it away – not with enough force to squish it; god, but he didn't want it squished against his skin, oozing down over him – the thought made him shudder. But in any case it apparently flew off; its buzzing drone diminished, but still echoed about, bouncing down the long concrete passage, which would have been dark except for the lights of the suits.

A few minutes later – probably having a conversation with ULTRON; Tony didn't care, caught up in his calculations – Steve emulated him, carrying his own helmet under one arm. He had the unpowered suit under the other; its limbs were locked, making it look like... well, not a blow-up doll, although if anyone had inclinations in that direction, Tony would have had to admit he probably couldn't throw stones given some of the modifications he'd considered during some bouts of drunken engineering, back when he still had _time_ for suit pursuits, even drunk.

The lights barely gleamed off of the darkened suits. This trick – Tony had to bite his tongue almost hard enough to bleed to keep himself from blurting out details, from asking more from JARVIS than materials, simulation specs, fab capabilities. Cloaking tech he _knew_ would work first, then he could build the design taking place in his head, imprinted upon the insides of his eyelids – hot _damn_, the sheer _potential_ of it... power, of course; it would require power; even the Mark XI AR would be burnt through at a prodigious rate. He wondered what the one in his chest had as a reserve.

"They have working bridge technology, we know that much," he said abruptly, interrupting one of Steve's brooding silences. It was hard to suppress resenting his coldness. "I need to get a look at it – my own – " he cut himself off. So much that he wanted to say – so little that he could actually say, uncloaked.

They arrived at a door: steel, at least a metre thick, showed the HUB; and more information, schematics and blueprints brought up as Tony eyed it curiously, JARVIS anticipating his questions before he even asked them. Four metres thick, in fact, and it was only the outer defense against nuclear attack: there were yet thicker doors below. It swung ponderously open, on hinges that would have made almighty barriers all by themselves, and standing beyond was a figure that Tony hadn't quite let himself believe would be there.

"Pepper!" Tony pulled off his helmet and grinned at her, giddy relief again rising to make everything go wobbly for a moment. He clanked past Steve – the doors, which hadn't even opened all the way, began to reverse their course the moment they were both through – and let himself drink in the sight of her. "You cut your hair!"

"You shaved your beard," she fired back. "And did a terrible job of it." Her eyes were dark, not just from the bad lighting – although at least in here there _were_ lights, cold, fluorescent things that they were. Suspicion – but, no, he deserved that from her. Fifteen years of friendship and yet he couldn't cut her in on any of his most recent projects... and he dared not tell her why.

He pulled off a glove so that he could run his fingers over his face. Unnecessary, of course: her judgement in such matters was as perfect as always. "You could have told me," he said to Steve peevishly.

"Give me your opinion, Steve," Pepper said crisply, turning on one heel – she wasn't wearing high-heels, either, which was a shame; in the suit he didn't have to wear lifts to match her when she did – and taking them further down the hallway. It had a distinct downward slant. Touches of civilization began abruptly: the lights changed to something less god-awful, the walls gave way from concrete to painted plaster; carpeting appeared.

Steve and Pepper conversed as they walked, although Tony could only hear half the conversation; Steve was using the helmet to speak in radio silence, which was, he thought, rather rude. He wouldn't have expected it of the good Captain. Or maybe Pepper was just talking to thin air; Tony did it all the time, after all. But she mostly seemed to be listening, not talking. Maybe she was just ignoring him.

"How quickly you go from one cave to another," Yinsen mused mildly.

Tony glanced away, glanced at the opposite wall. It wasn't much of a cave – up ahead, one wall gave way to a glass panel, and beyond he could see racks of servers, holographic imaging equipment – and suits. A repair-bay, a fab bay – if they could build suits here, he could use it to make what he needed.

"If they'll let you. Do not forget how they killed your predecessor, Stark."

Tony shook his head. Pepper and Steve might as well have been halfway across the world, for how remote they seemed; he ignored them in turn. "It doesn't matter," he said quietly, stopping to stare through the glass. Calculations writ themselves large in his mind's eye. "I need the fab units." To build the cloak, to get home: home, triumphant – with Steve, and Pepper... he shook his head again. Something seemed off about that thought, but he couldn't chase down what it was.

"And so you will build them all the weapons they desire? These men and women – "

He pulled his helmet back on. "It's Steve and Pepper, they're different. And it's not a weapon." He glanced at them; they were glancing back, but they couldn't hear him from inside the helmet, and JARVIS, at least, could be trusted to keep his secrets. _Had_ to be trusted to keep his secrets. There was no way he could have made what progress he had, in as little time as he'd had, if he'd had to cut JARVIS out of everything. It'd have been impossible.

"So you said of your suit." Yinsen was scornful, now, and it ignited a flash of anger. First Steve, then Pepper, and now even _Yinsen_? No, that wasn't fair – god _damn_ him, he owed Yinsen too much – owed Pepper too much, owed Steve too much – but he was _trying_, at least, with the suits – "Now they are weapons of war, the enforcement tools of yet another dictator. Look at what you've built!"

The dark grey of the War Machine suit, standing tall over Pepper – her red hair almost glowing, caught in the harsh light from the suit – yes, it seemed inhuman. As inhuman as Vanko's suit, or any of his automatons. "What's the other option, SHIELD?" he demanded, working to speak despite the sudden dryness in his throat. It couldn't be thirst; he didn't get thirsty anymore. "Yeah, _that's_ a great choice."

"I long for the days when upon being presented with two terrible choices, you would forge a third," Yinsen said softly.

Tony cursed under his breath – cursed _himself_ under his breath. But Yinsen... he couldn't say anymore. He had to take the helmet off again, his fingers fumbling at the clasps; that god-damned fly had gotten trapped in it again. Fuck that thing, anyway.

"Stark," Steve said after a moment, and belatedly Tony registered that he was being stared at – no, not stared at; carefully evaluated. Well, it amounted to much the same thing. "ULTRON's not picking up any bugs – "

"Then his mics need an adjustment," Tony snapped irritably.

_"If you inform me of the frequency spectrum, I can perform additional tests upon them, but standard operations show no transmission, audio or otherwise,"_ said ULTRON, rather coolly. Well, he could get snitty when Tony questioned him, sometimes.

Fair enough, considering what he put up with, but – _really_. "Try the average human hearing range?" _Why_ were they harping on this? It was a disgusting fly, but, seriously, there were more important concerns.

Steve was frowning again. "Fine. If you won't say it aloud, can you write it down?"

"Yes." Tony clapped his hands together. "Yes. Schematics, schematics – my kingdom for a rendering program – what joy, you have it right here." He gestured to the glass imperiously; some way down the hall, a panel of it swung open, inviting him in. "Can I get out of the armour first, though?"

Yinsen's words preyed upon his mind despite all logic. This was _Pepper_ and _Steve_.

But it had been _Yinsen_ who had said it.

* * *

**NOW**

The air shivered with power. Every hair on Steve's head felt like it was standing straight-up, the raw magic in the room behaving almost like static – no doubt he was a ridiculous sight if he looked anything like Anthony, whose hair looked like he'd stuck a fork into an electrical socket.

("But why would someone do that in the first place?" Steve had asked plaintively.

"Just don't try it yourself," the SHIELD agent who'd been instructing him that day had replied.)

The floor of the room, a thin plate of gold machined expressly for this purpose, was covered in glyphs; Steve had spent part of yesterday watching Anthony carve each into the metal by hand. Now, they were dark spots in the light that radiated from the gold, washing everything in a yellow sheen. Steve's armour – a spare set provided by this world's Steve, who apparently had a fondness for scale mail – looked green in the light, as did Anthony's pyjamas.

_"Above, within, between, below,"_ Anthony intoned, and the glyphs rose in the air, shadows made from smoke; Steve's nose twitched, and he had to stifle the urge to sneeze. The air smelled like peppermint and gold – he hadn't even been aware that gold _had _a smell. _"Inverted, upside, rightside, down."_

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. Steve doubled over, clutching his arms to himself; he felt like his insides were slipping past each other, twisting and trying to suck all his skin in, leave him exposed, muscle and bone to the air. The air shook harder; his teeth rattled his mouth, tugging at his gums.

"_These mortal forms we shed and go; twisted, lost, reverted, found. Crack barriers, break law; bend will, we're gone!"_

The light went out. The shaking stopped. Steve was aware, for a moment, of a vast number of lives around him, people living oblivious to the power in their midst, the _threat_. The gem in his belt's centre-most pocket could have told him the exact number, if he wished – but then they were gone, and the light returned.

"Welcome to the Infinite Embassy," said a mellifluous voice from his right. Steve turned, and took in a figure a foot or two taller than the average human, wearing long, flowing purple robes and a metallic mask. Or, on second thought – that might have been the thing's face. It was impossible to determine if the speaker was male, female, something else entirely – or even if it was alive at all. "If you have any questions, please ring." With that, the creature turned and glided away – _really_ glided. Steve wondered if it had wheels.

Apart from their greeter, there seemed to be nobody else but him and Anthony in the room they had been transported to – which, Steve had to admit, was certainly an impressive room. It had an old gothic feel, with high, vaulted stone walls – they might have been granite – and ceiling, but there was an alien quality to it as well; lines carved in places that human surrealists might have put them, but that certainly no classical sculptor or architect would think of.

Anthony sighed, and Steve looked over to see that the sorcerer was giving him a measuring look. The gem in his faceplate was glowing again.

"What?"

"What'd Strange give you?"

Steve flushed. "How'd you know it was him?"

"Reed wouldn't have been able to hide anything powerful enough to give one of the Magistrati pause from the sight of the Eye of Agamotto." He gestured at the doors of the room, although Steve didn't see anything change. "There. We're warded. Tell me what I'm dealing with before we go out into the Embassy proper, if you don't _mind_." His voice was edging towards acerbic.

Well, if it was something that might bring demons after them... Steve pulled the stone out of his pocket.

"God in Heaven!"

The strength of the shock in Anthony's voice made Steve flinch, and before he knew it, information was pulsing into him from the green gem – _DeterminationProtectDiscoverDefendKeepsafe –_ he flinched, and it was gone again. He shoved the stone back into his pocket. The borrowed suit he was wearing felt suddenly too thin, like it was made out of nothing more than the spandex and padding he'd had for the USO circuit, and he couldn't repress the urge to quickly double-check their surroundings – but nobody else had appeared.

"Well, that's... well." Anthony sighed. "Dear lord, the man might've _told _me – we'll have to leave by a different route. Although it might prevent us from doing so..." he hummed, staring off into nothing. "That's my concern, though, not yours. I suppose he told you _not_ to give it to me."

"Yeah," Steve admitted.

Anthony snorted, and made a slashing gesture at the doors. "Keep it at hand, then. And stay close. If you wander off down the wrong corridor, you could find yourself in a set of rooms that corresponds to a different Earth entirely. This place isn't meant for mortals."

"Oh, so very true," purred another voice, full of silky malice, and Steve spun to see a new being slink through a door, where no door had been before – a red-skinned being, cloaked by a cape made seemingly from smoke, and carrying a trident tipped with wicked-looking barbs.

No. It _couldn't_ be. Could it? For all that Stephen and Anthony had spoken of demons, of the devil himself, a part of Steve resisted believing. Even if this guy was just another alien... The rest of him wished fervently that he had his shield – for all the good it might have done.

"Lord Mephisto," said Anthony, tone neutral.

"Our earlier conversation was so rudely interrupted, I thought I might come greet you," the devil said idly, raising one hand and lazily gesturing, like some kind of upper-class, extremely British shrug. He circled as he spoke, and Steve felt drops of sweat beading on his spine; he couldn't keep eyes on both Mephisto and the door, and the Lord only knew who or what else might come through it. Yet following the old words of 'get thee behind me' was beyond him; he could think of absolutely no reason why he'd want to let this threat get _behind_ him, out of sight.

"I've no longer reason to seek a bargain with you, I'm afraid," Anthony murmured, strolling in the general direction of the door before turning – a wise move. It put him too close to the wall for Mephisto to circle behind him again, but let him keep the door at the edge of his peripheral vision. Steve wished he'd thought of it, but his brain felt like it was moving through molasses. "The exchange I desired was time-sensitive, and the interruption delayed it past the critical point."

"So unfortunate," Mephisto waved the thought away. Smoke trailed behind his hand like he was holding a cigarette – but, no, the smoke was too dark for that. "Yet here you are. Mortals do not come here without purpose. Buying information, are we?"

"I am the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth, and I come and go as I please." Anthony's teeth glinted white as he smiled. "But unless you're selling entrance into the Devil's Advocacy..."

Mephisto threw back his head and laughed. "Bold, so bold! But you well know – " he was over by Anthony in a rush, so fast that Steve barely saw him move, one red, muscled arm thrown over the sorcerer's shoulders, " – that t'is not I who bans you from there. But for the Living Tribunal's Magistrati, I would be _delighted_ to invite you down." His other arm reached up to stroke Anthony's shoulders, while the one already about them slipped down, much lower...

Something _snapped_ and Mephisto, so it seemed, teleported back a foot, shaking out his fingers like he'd been stung. "Hardly a way to treat your better, boy," he hissed, eyes smouldering even hotter than before.

"Oh, I've always liked it," Anthony said mildly. "Ta, Mephisto. You don't have anything I'm looking to buy – not today."

"And what about your friend?" Again, smoke billowed, and he was gone. Steve gagged; the stench of sulfur clogged his nose, sticking to his tongue and throat, and the devil was _behind_ him, whispering something that –

- _Bucky laughing, clapping him over the shoulder –_

- _Peggy smiling, her lips curving up –_

_- Tony grinning through holograms –_

Yellow and white power poured across the images, diluting the rawness of them and letting him see them for the fakes they were. A sigh, behind him, and a heavy hand clapped him on the shoulder, and then the devil was beside him instead. Steve forced himself to move, to stumble away. His legs were shaking too badly for him to walk steadily.

"If you want to deal without interruptions," Mephisto said, "feel free to call off your guard. I'm certain we could come to an agreement you'd _like_." A twist of his wrist, and crimson smoke bloomed away from his hand; he'd conjured up a business card, and now offered it to Steve. "Say the word – and they could be yours, again."

Steve swallowed. His mouth felt dry. _Lord, lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from Evil, for Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen._

"Get thee behind me," he rasped. "Devil."

Mephisto snorted in derision, and vanished into a cloud of smoke; Steve doubled over, coughing. As he stumbled back further and tried to clear his lungs, he heard someone mutter, "Catholics. So _unimaginative_." But he could not have said if the speaker was Mephisto or Anthony.

"I'm not Catholic," he gasped, a minute later when breathing wasn't quite so hard. The air still stank of sulfur, but the smoke, at least, was clearing rapidly, and he could see Anthony doing something complicated with his hands that seemed to be – summoning wind?

"Er," Anthony looked up from his spell. "Okay?" So maybe it hadn't been Anthony, again. It was a true statement nonetheless. Steve didn't have much right to call himself Catholic anymore – setting aside, as he had constantly for the last few years, the question of whether or not he _wanted_ that right.

"Just... never mind," Steve mumbled, then shook his head. "That was the – the devil?" It seemed... impossible, like something he'd hallucinated while in the grips of extremis. Another alien. Just another alien. But those images... right before Anthony's spells had kicked in, they had been _so real_...

"Not _the_ Devil," Anthony said, and Steve could hear the capitalization. "He likes to trick people into thinking he's the real deal, though – gives him more power." He clapped his hands together, dismissing whatever spell he'd been working, and pushed against a section of stone wall. It melted away; at the same time, the previous door out of the room vanished – the one that Mephisto had entered by was already gone, and Steve couldn't have said when it went away – stone fading into existence slow enough that it seemed to be congealing out of the air itself. Steve had to catch himself to stop from staring at it in fascination.

The new corridor was lit by blue flames that poured out of sconces in the walls and trickled down them to vanish on the floor, like miniature, slow-motion waterfalls. Steve held his hand near to one as they walked by, but the flames were quite hot – he had to pull his fingers back before he got burned. The hallway soon widened out, however, the ceiling rising proportionally as it did so, so that it was less of a corridor, and more of a grand hall – one that felt strangely... filled, despite there being no one else in it.

"Are there..." Steve began to ask, and then trailed off. He wasn't sure how to ask if anyone was watching them.

Anthony looked at him enquiringly, and he sighed. "Never mind."

"Bad idea to ignore things, in this place," the sorcerer murmured.

Was it? "Okay, then," Steve said slowly. In that case... there was something else more pressing than being watched from afar – someone standing right beside him. "What deal were you trying to make with Mephisto?"

"On the other hand, sometimes ignoring things is a great idea," Anthony said, pulling up short.

Steve was about to protest when he saw that they weren't alone. Beside one of the blue firefalls stood the Magistrati – Magister? Magistrate? Steve wished he knew what the correct title was – that had greeted them a scant few minutes ago. Or perhaps was it a different one, just wearing the same uniform? Seeing it there, Steve could suddenly also see the outlines of doors – no, not just the outlines; an enormous pair of brass doors were now plainly visible beside it. Steve fought the urge to rub at his eyes and settled for blinking several times, instead.

"You may not enter," it said calmly – almost blankly.

"Not looking to, thanks," Anthony said, studying at the doors. He nodded once, decisively. "Come on, Steve."

"What was that about?" Steve asked, trying to resist the urge to look back over his shoulder, once they were another hall-length away. The doors were, once again, invisible – or perhaps just not present. Neither was the Magister.

"It's where the Council of Godheads meets," Anthony said. Steve glanced over at him; he looked like Tony usually did, when he was worrying at something puzzling. "The heads of the various Earth pantheons – you know. Zeus Olympios, Amun-Ra, Odin Alfodr, Beli, Lugh, Vishnu, Jehovah, Tezcatlipoca, Nyambe, Anu, Takami-musubi, Yu-huang – "

Steve stopped in his tracks. It was not a conscious decision. His feet just wouldn't carry him any further.

"Steve?"

"Jehovah?" That wasn't right. He hadn't meant his voice to come out sounding quite so cracked, or cracked at all. He'd meant it to come out... incredulous.

They'd spoken of the gods of the Earthen pantheons at the meetings – Anthony and Stephen, two sorcerers who could apparently conjure themselves into the realms of the gods. Yet somehow – he'd seen Thor and Loki, he'd known that there were still people who _worshipped_ Thor and Loki – or maybe the names that Thor and Loki had taken on –

"Uh, yes?" Anthony sounded... worried. Maybe he was right to be worried. Steve's lungs didn't seem to be working right. Lingering sulfur, maybe. "The Abrahamic God – well, okay, I'm more guessing on whether or not he'd be there, since when he is, he apparently usually abstains from voting, or whatever they do, which means he's not overheard a lot, so maybe he's only an honorary member – "

The Earthen pantheons, they'd said –

_You just didn't think they meant _yours.

" – he's certainly not one of the active players this millennia. Then again, that many worshippers, he's got to have a lot on his plate."

"Worshippers," Steve said flatly.

Anthony paused. Glanced over Steve's shoulder – Steve followed the glance automatically, but the Magistrate, and the doors, were gone; the hallway stretched out behind them was a perfect mirror image of the hallway before them. "Yes, worshippers," Anthony said, slower, more careful, less... babbly, now. "Like, say, Catholics. Which you're... not." It would almost have been sarcasm, except for the deep concern underlying the words.

"You don't mean that – you're not saying that they're – that's – they're not actually _gods_," he managed to choke out.

Anthony blinked at him. "Uh – yes, they are?"

"They're aliens." It didn't come out as certain as he could have wished.

"In the sense that they're not _human,_ yes," Anthony said slowly. "In the sense that most of them don't live on _Earth_... also yes. Uh, in the sense that they answer prayers, live according mythologies and have powers that break the boundaries of all mortal magic – they're gods."

"And you _pray_ to them?" The idea was obscene. How could they – how could _he _be praying to a god that – a god that was just one of many, a god that sat in council with other _aliens_, and _argued _with them? God was supposed to be a universal truth – interpreted in different ways, but the basic ideas, of kindness, love – how could that be encompassed by any being mortal enough, flawed enough, to be stuck casting votes, in a jury of peers?

"Me? G- uh, no, no way. I'm an atheist," Anthony said, rocking back on his heels, startled.

"So then you don't think they're gods," Steve said – accused.

"They _are_ gods," Anthony said, patience and weariness – perhaps wariness, too – in his voice. "But I don't pray to any of them."

"Why not?"

_Are you so forlorn that you're asking an atheist for faith, Rogers?_

Anthony grimaced. "This isn't really a great time to be having a crisis of faith," he said, but for some reason, rather than accusing or irritated or remonstrative, he sounded half-apologetic.

"Why call yourself an atheist? You believe in them." Steve's voice cracked in the middle.

"I just – I don't." Anthony hesitated, and added, waving a hand vaguely in the direction that they'd come from, "I'm not one of theirs. I'm my own man, with my own responsibilities."

"It's not right," Steve murmured. "They're – they're aliens. They're not supposed to be – " he, too, stuck out a hand pointing back down the hallway – an awkward motion, made so by frustration.

_- as real as yours? _

No, it wasn't that. It was that He was supposed to be – something more. A concept, not a person, prone to the vices of... if Odin – Thor's father – was a true God, then Thor, his _son_... – but Thor, for all that he was a great guy, had attacked them first, was prideful and quick to anger; Thor was so very far from the perfection, the omnipotence and omniscience, of true divinity. Yet he was the son of a god – _a God_ – who sat in council with God – how?

"I mean – " he floundered, trying to sort out his thoughts; Anthony looked completely lost. "I get that people worship different gods. And I don't think they're wrong. Didn't. Don't." Different names for the same thing, he'd figured – different names, different faces, but beneath it the truest tenet of the Lord's word held, just as it held in other religions – Love.

But the idea of an Almighty that he'd grown up with –

That Almighty was just one of many.

_Not like you've never questioned your beliefs before,_ he wanted to tell himself.

_Mom._

_Bucky. _

_This brave new world –_

How did that manage to pale next to Anthony's blithe, 'He usually abstains from voting'? Was it Anthony? Was it this _place?_ Had Steve's counterpart in the reality they'd just left been right – did he have so much more to lose?

There were no atheists in foxholes, and the Good Lord surely knew that Steve had been in enough of those. But apparently the Good Lord Himself could be in foxholes, or in council rooms, or _not_ in either – when Steve had always taken it for granted that the Lord was everywhere.

The idea that He might _not_ be somewhere... that He was a being that came and went...

"Look, if it helps," Anthony said, sounding uncomfortable, after the silence had dragged out for a full minute. There was a note of impatience in his voice, too – and a part of Steve was aware that they were standing around doing nothing in _very_ alien territory. Probably not the best idea. "I don't worship any gods. But that doesn't mean I don't have any _faith._"

Different names for the same thing – and beneath it all, universal truths. Was he so arrogant, that to be proven wrong on the former account would so badly shake his belief in the latter?

"Beings of myth and legend doesn't mean the principles are wrong." Anthony's words were quiet, but far from uncertain. "In the face of such an enormous universe... they're more important than ever."

"Yeah."

But he felt his eyes slide sideways, to look at Anthony obliquely. For all that Anthony had talked of faith, he'd still been willing to summon a being so evil that Steve had been able to _feel_ its wrongness. Why? There was no story in which deals with the devil did not go wrong. And for all that Anthony had said Mephisto wasn't _the_ Devil, he was _a_ demon, of some sort – was there a Devil? An endless Hell, where the damned burned? What things had he assumed about God, thinking that they _felt_ right, no matter whether the Bible agreed or disagreed?

When he died, was he damned? Was Bucky, even now? Howard? Tony? They'd all been men of war – good men, but the Bible itself held some damned stupid ideas –

The Lord have mercy upon him in his ignorance, Steve thought, and had to choke down on a laugh before it emerged, lest he give into hysteria completely.

"Steve?" Anthony asked. But then his eyes narrowed and he turned. Steve heard it in the same moment, and turned as well: footsteps, approaching fast, and loud. He let his limbs fall loose and easy, not into a _fighting_ stance, per se, but into something that was better suited to action, at least.

Their interruption stepped around the corner – and when that corner had appeared, Steve had no idea; it hadn't been there before – jogging briskly, and pulled to a sudden halt. He was, surprisingly, not wearing nail-shod boots, but thick leather sandals – although given how loud his footsteps had sounded, he had to have feet made of something denser than lead. The rest of his clothing – what little of it there was – was like something out of a period drama: a – kilt? Toga? ...Loincloth? – _skirt_, the thought crept treacherously in, and Steve barely kept from wincing; he was doomed to say that aloud, now – a _covering_ that didn't cover much, but was made of rich, metallic fabric, and accompanied by a three-inch wide metal shoulder-strap whose sole function appeared to be decorative – unless it was being used to hold up the sk- the covering.

"Anthony!" cried the stranger, and took several quick steps forward before engulfing Anthony in a bear-hug. "Not the one I'd expect, but well met all the same!" For his part, Anthony only made a small squawk upon being grabbed, and then managed to bear the hug – arms trapped at his sides by the stranger's own – in silence. After a moment, he was released, and then it was _Steve's_ turn to be picked up and squished, as the stranger proclaimed, "Steven!"

"Hercules," Anthony said by way of both introduction and greeting, as soon as Steve was released.

'_Hercules?'_ Steve mouthed incredulously, stumbling somewhat as his feet found the floor again. Out of the corner of his eye, Anthony gave a tiny shrug. There was certainly no denying the guy's muscles – He put even _Thor_ to shame, and that was surely saying... something. If it came down to a fight –

He'd fought the son of a God before. Two sons of a God. A fit of hysterical giggling threatened again; again, he swallowed it down.

"I am _not_ babysitting your dogs again," Anthony added quickly, and, well, at least there went the idea of a _fight_. It sounded like a story, for sure – like something out of a pagan myth, or more accurately, Greek legend, where the gods were as cruel and capricious as any human, and might set tasks for them accordingly – and who would stop them? They had the right of Divinity.

Was the Lord he believed in nothing more than that?

"Ah, no, I could not take them within the Embassy in any case," Hercules waved a hand – his wrist was as thick as one of Steve's biceps, and that was, if anything, an _understatement_ – carelessly. Steve fought the urge to duck. "The Magistrati will not allow them entrance; they have no love of pets, or hounds in particular. You and they should get on well, I think."

"Oh, they have their moments."

"But, alas, you are not the mortal I seek," Hercules said, beginning to frown, "and so I must be off again. May we meet again, under better circumstances – perchance, ones that shall call for a contest of might!"

"Wait!" said Anthony, as Hercules stepped between them, before he could break into a jog once more. "These halls are empty. I would know why, but none here will answer me – for none are to be found." There was a strange cadence about his words, echoing Hercules' own – or Thor's, perhaps – not quite a spell, but yet retaining some of a spell's power.

Hercules stopped, and turned once more to face them, a grin breaking out over his face. "A glorious war approaches, my friends; and I have business with the Sorcerer Supreme of this Earth, for he has in his possession a certain lion cloak that I would collect ere the eve of battle give way into bloody morning."

"What battle?" Anthony demanded. "What war? Is this why the Skyfathers' Councilroom is silent?"

"Aye, but such matters are not for mortal concern," Hercules agreed arrogantly – and completely oblivious to that fact, Steve rather thought. He slipped his hand into his pocket, where the gem lay. It had given him insight before...

If a god had a soul, did that make him something less than a God? A God – _a_, he was thinking now, as if there were more than one! Lord Jesus Christ – and he couldn't even call upon them in oaths, now, for protection or prayer, not with his thoughts all out of order –

The gem, unbidden, grew warm in his hand. His vision doubled, trebled, split further; he felt like he looked at a long line of men, each as towering and hairy as the last, extending off into infinity both behind and before Hercules. Strength, there was, and compassion – but that was buried beneath arrogance, quick temper, and bullheadedness. Still, a clear lack of deceit shone through. The information now was not so _present_ as it had been when he'd looked at Stephen or Anthony; but the god's sheer presence – _and he was a god; the gem did not lie, but shone brightly, the cold light of truth: there is Power in this Universe that cannot be denied –_made his head ache –

Steve pulled his fingers away, and locked his hands behind his back, 'at-ease', where they could not be seen to tremble.

_You cannot hide from the truth so long as you bear this gem_, came the thought, unbidden, and Steve had to fight the urge to glance down, to take the gem from his pocket and study it. Had that thought been his... or its?

"If the Skyfathers are withdrawing even here, then this battle may yet decide the fate of my own Earth; and that world is my charge," Anthony was arguing.

"If you would be considered wise, then well you ought know that there are forces beyond you," Hercules shrugged. "This is one such. Fare thee well, mortals; and wish us all fortune, for should we fall, you will not be far behind us."

"Lord Hercules - !" Anthony cut himself off. The god rounded the corner and was gone, his footsteps vanishing immediately as though he'd ceased to exist once out of sight. "Damn it!"


	6. Chapter 6

**THEN**

Frustration made his fingers fly over the keyboards even faster than normal, only barely slowed by the sadly standard configuration – there was a reason that back at home he had a 3D holo-keyboard with a dozen different setups, and it was not to show off (except when it was).Frustration – he was wasting time building yesterday's obsolete model. But before he could advance on today's, he needed something that would hide the room from Loki's prying eyes.

"Futile," the god's voice whispered in his ears. Tony ignored it; if he could ignore that fucking fly then he could ignore _Loki_. Loki had fuck-all on it; the fly reigned supreme.

Connections, fine-wires, panels and plates, etchings – he'd kill for a decent microfab lab, but J –

_"ULTRON, Mr. Stark."_

- but U – wait, no, he already had one called U. T? Tron? That had been a terrible movie. What on earth had possessed his other self to name JARVIS after something like that thing?

_"I chose the name myself."_ It was the lack of intonation that gave away ULTRON's irritation; Tony felt his shoulders hunch inward as he realized. He chose it himself? Had the other Tony given him an even stupider name, or – not cared? He felt a flash of anger – and then, of course, the grating irony. It wasn't as if he were doing much better.

"What, did you watch too many terrible movies as a child?" he asked flippantly, trying to redirect rather than apologize. He _hated_ apologizing. Especially to JARVIS – ULTRON. Damn it, his name was _ULTRON, _maybe his other self would try to kill his kid, but the least Tony could do was remember his damn _name_, no matter how hard it was to think with the fly buzzing away right at the edge of his hearing.

_"If your taste in movies is anything like my creator's, Mr. Stark, you may wish to consider the translucence of the walls before you begin throwing wrenches."_

"Eloquent as always, T. I should introduce you to JARVIS. I mean, when we get this thing worked out – " Circuits took shape under his hands as he spoke; his fingers tapped through process code, specs – and at least if he talked, he could focus on something other than that damn fly. The buzz cut out for a moment – but he was pretty sure it was still in the room, and if he leaned back and accidentally crushed it, it might get fly bits on him, which was a disgusting thought that had kept him from doing any such thing for the past hour.

_"I doubt very much he should be pleased to meet me."_

"What? Nah, he'd love you – you're like, twins, big brother, older due to time-slip, you even got the gruff, big-brother voice down."

_"If you consider us siblings,"_ ULTRON said, as dry as JARVIS but considerably darker, _"you may also consider that I killed his step-father."_

Tony paused; it was a bad place, and the component he'd been moving accidentally got dropped into the middle of an already completed segment. "Uh. I've been called narcissistic, but I don't think I'm _actually_ married to myself."

_"An imperfect analogy,"_ ULTRON admitted, _"but you must admit it has some merit."_

"Yeah, well." He might have commented on the fact that _yes, sure_ he would totally do himself – back before Pepper he actually _had_ seduced a look-alike once, that had been a fun night – but instead what came out was, "Guy had it coming. There. Fab it!"

"Tony?" Pepper spoke from behind him; Tony twirled the chair around to see her. "Are you... done?"

"Nearly, near enough," he temporized. "Not really?"

"But you can take a break, if you're sending things to fab," she pinned him with a look he knew so well. Tony held his palms up, acquiesced: sort of. "ULTRON's done the scans five times at least. We're under half a mile of solid rock – this place could withstand a direct nuclear attack. There's no way that SHIELD is getting anything from any bug it might have."

"Yeah, you've got a nice set-up," he agreed, swivelling his chair back and forth a bit to admire it all the more. It _was_, really. A higher roof, carpeting – there was even a virtual fish tank projected onto one neatly painted wall. Not much of the feeling of a cave at all, except for the inescapable _feel_ of it. He was too used to keeping secrets from her these days to unwind fully, as he might've done a year before.

_"Escape-hatches all covered, limited,"_ Natasha observed, her voice tinny over the earpiece. _"You're completely in their power."_

"Shut up, I'm not listening to you," he replied sourly, scrabbling at his ear to get the earpiece out – but it had fallen out already. Shitty SHIELD work. Pepper's eyes narrowed – "Not you," he hastily assured her.

"Then who - ?"

"Nobody important," he said darkly. "But, yeah, no, SHIELD's no problem – well, not the sort of problem that comes to us." He flicked his hands over the keyboard again, beginning on the equations SHIELD had provided, mourning his own configurable setup – who used _actual_, hard-wired keyboards these days? Morons, time-wasters, that was who –

_"If I might say, these equations produce results that seem incompatible with the Foster Theory. Are you sure you did not make an error?"_

"Not on my end," he shook his head. "Those are the root of what SHIELD gave me – buried under a tonne of useless _crap_, took me days to put them together – "

"Mortal," Loki reminded him, sing-song. Tony batted at the air beside his ear irritably.

" – otherwise I wouldn't have fucking _stayed_ so long."

_"You stayed because you're weak, and you know you deserve to die,"_Natasha pointed out. Goddamned fucking _SHIELD tech –_

_"I have taken the liberty of calling Captain Rogers down,"_ ULTRON cut in, a moment before Steve appeared from around the corner, behind the glass. The door hadn't been closed at all, Tony noticed, as he watched Steve entering the room – all in black, and without his shield, still. Stevie-the-Younger carried _his_ shield everywhere – what had happened to this world's version?

"We had hopes you might be able to help us with reverse engineering their portal," he said, staring at the projection that JARVIS had put up – a twisty, windy wormhole that aimed to implode upon itself, or so it appeared to Tony. To anybody else it was probably gibberish clustered around data points. "Find a way to prevent them from opening one."

"What, like – to here?" he asked, startled. He tapped his fingers again. The shielding he'd just sent for fab should be able to do that... but he couldn't say that aloud, couldn't risk it, not with the shielding not yet in place. "Maybe," he hedged.

"Not just here. We want to prevent somebody from making a portal from anywhere on Earth."

Tony stared at him. Steve stared back, deadly earnest. Fuck, that was the look that made Nazis surrender by the dozens and become hippies – or maybe it was the one that made them wet their pants, Tony was having difficulty telling. Maybe Steve was just pissed at him. Fuck. "I don't _know_," he said, and this time it didn't need much hedging. "Okay – ground coverage..." but what quantity of material would that mean? The cloaks on the Tower and the Facility had cost almost as much to build as the Tower itself – especially since he'd had to hide all it all when implementing it in the former – "No, ground coverage is screwed." The portable cloak was _portable_ – this was trying to go in the opposite direction, small to large. _Very far_ in the opposite direction. He tapped his fingers on the desk, restlessly. Reflection, maybe, from a sufficiently far source – he balanced losses and coverage in his head and didn't like where the numbers fell. There was no new flash of inspiration to be had.

"Maybe you should ask why we need it," said Steve, sounding more patient with Tony than he had since they'd taken off in the suits.

"Excellent question – " Tony snapped his fingers and pointed at Steve, "why _do_ you need it? That's terrible implementation practice, to come up with a solution that's really another problem – this is why you need engineers at all planning stages. Cloaking the planet is unfeasible, _next_ – "

His mouth had betrayed him again; Steve's lips tightened into a thinner line, and he'd lost all his friendliness again when he answered, "We think SHIELD is trying to run off-planet."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "They've already got portal technology to do that, if they wanted." He frowned. As far as strategies went, it didn't seem... sound.

"They brought you here – are you sure you could get back the same way?" Steve asked bluntly, and Tony felt a chill down his spine.

"Arrogance will be your downfall, Stark."

He ignored the observation – it wasn't helpful. Not now. Maybe five days ago. _Fuck_. He closed his eyes, ran equations, energy flows – he'd been working on a two-way system, but his way hadn't fucking _worked_ over large distances, now, had it? What if they'd come up with a one-way? Not all forces were dual; there were ways – "_Fuck_."

"We need to stop them going to another Earth. They've already ruined too much of this world."

Tony nodded, not opening his eyes. He was still picturing equations – Pepper stood, he could hear her, the sound of her skirt shifting, even over the fly. How persistent _was_ the thing? Was it some fly-cockroach hybrid, doomed to never die?

"They have an alliance with the brother of... the person you're worried about," Pepper said delicately. She was looking at the virtual fish-tank, reaching out with one hand to press against it – and, huh. Was it an _actual_ fish-tank? Why in god's name would they have an actual fish-tank down here? No, it had to be just another screen.

"Focus, Tony."

"Hah – _no_. They wouldn't lower themselves to ally with – they'd never." Thor's words to Fury about the matter of the Tesseract had been a thing of great beauty. Asgard was willing to _help_ Earth; they were less willing to share their tech.

"_Queen_ Jane of Asgard – " aha, so _that_ was how SHIELD had managed to figure out some rudimentary magic – "changed Thor's mind. Not all the way. She's been here and back a couple of times, though. We can pick up the portals, although while _Thor_ is around it's as impossible to go after her as it is when she's near Banner." Tony winced at ever name, but Steve just leaned forward. "But every time she comes back, she brings them more information. She's not stupid – her and Banner managed to get _you_ here, which means they'll figure it out how to get SHIELD _out _soon."

"_Queen_– " he tilted his head to the side. Okay, so gods generally sounded like a skeevy lot in the myths, but surely _Jane _would have better taste than _Odin_ – ah, but, _right_. Loki's projection in this world was dead. "Rudolf killed him." And this projection Thor had 'killed' his brother in return.

The real Loki – and Thor, who damn well put up with him, did not rate much higher – would laugh in all their faces at the thought of an alliance and see that they died screaming – if he could be bothered to care that much. Though that was an idea, shoving somebody who deserved it into the line of fire – diversions were such useful things. Assuming you weren't the one being diverted – although that could still be pretty awesome, given Loki's shapeshifting – he shook his head.

Diversion. Hmm.

"Why the entire planet? They bugged out when they figured out I had an arc reactor, said you could scan it." He shook his head. "You've got to have a fix on their location, after their fuckery with the virus."

"We have a fix on Banner's location," Steve corrected him. He grimaced. "Looks like they've been there for months. It's a fortress. And even if we could get in, the Hulk would appear – not to mention what 'His Majesty' would do if he caught sight of us endangering Jane. More civilian casualties – we've got enough of those already. And we don't have the suits to spare, either."

"But, recon – " he gestured to the flawed equations, the broken wormhole, " – enough that I can reverse-engineer – "

Steve shook his head. "Their set-up wouldn't withstand a nuke, but they make up for it. Anything small enough to go ordinarily undetected can't withstand the EMPs."

"Shielding – "

_"I have provided the best possible,"_ ULTRON sounded exasperated.

"Ah." Tony grinned wolfishly. "But now you have me."

_"There are certain physical limitations that cannot be overcome by ego alone."_

"You wound me," he pressed a hand over the arc reactor dramatically, "but not the point. J – T – you've got to _think outside the box._"

_"...nor by corporate catchphrases."_

"Aha, so little faith. What's your feeling about an invisibility cloak?"

"If you could make it work, it could get a suit in," Steve said. He sounded slightly distracted, like he was running numbers of his own in his head – tactics and layouts and troop positions, no doubt.

"Me, in a suit, specifically," Tony pointed at him again, thumb and forefinger shaped like a gun. "And you – if you want. You need me to be able to grab the right data before we upload T. Even if they're working on a different theory," he hesitated, "it'd still put us closer to home."

"Steve, a word?" Pepper broke her silence beside the maybe-fish-tank and left the room without looking at either of them; Steve looked at Tony, looked at her retreating back, shrugged, and followed her. The glass door swung shut behind them, merging imperceptibly with its wall, so that it might have been _Tony_ in the fish-tank. He made a face, scrunched up his nose, and hit the override key after a carefully considered minute – long enough to give Pepper time to rant, surely. Perhaps he picked the wrong button, though; it wasn't the door, but nearly half the wall that faded away, sliding silently back to reveal open air.

Apparently a minute was not long enough for Pepper to have finished; well, it was still more time than he usually gave her. God, he was unfair to her. " - you heard ULTRON! He's delusional!" Pepper was insisting, but she cut herself off abruptly as she realized that the wall had turned from invisible to inexistent.

"He can hear you, you know," Tony said dryly. It wasn't like ULTRON didn't have mics everywhere, after all.

"That wasn't – I didn't mean – this plan of yours is insane, the pair of you," she said, pacing across to the fish-tank again, then back, restless. Her words seemed... off, somehow. He couldn't pin down why.

Loki was all too ready to provide an answer, damn him – "Because as natural as my craft may come to her, she is unused to practicing it upon _you_," he said, in that goddamned _accent_ of his, so smug and self-assured. If his voice hadn't been but a figment, Tony would have gladly punched him in the teeth – but Loki was illusions and lies, shadows and hiding and there was so much work to be done before Tony could track him down. So much, and he was chipping ice cubes off a glacier.

And even when Tony found him, punching him in the teeth would be an excellent way to fuck up all the work he'd done to get there. But _damn_, it would feel good...

"Quick in, quick out," Tony explained, trying to sound reasonable. Wait, maybe she'd think that was suspicious... and here he actually _was_ being reasonable. "They'll never see us coming, they won't see us there – we can grab the intel, give them hemorrhoids, kiss 'em goodbye, and we get to go home tomorrow." He wrinkled his nose. "At least the Tower has windows."

Pepper was staring at Steve, as if trying to convey some significant information; reluctantly, slowly, Steve said, "Stark. You know we're not going with you, right?"

"What?" Tony blinked at him. His hand fumbled for his chest. He felt empty, as if there was a great cavernous space inside him that the words were bouncing around, echoing, so that by the time they left his mouth they were already familiar. "Of course you're coming."

"I'm dead," Steve said, and he sounded like it. All the life was gone from his voice. "This is our world."

"That is a complete non-sequitur – " his throat closed around his demand; _so what?_ He couldn't ask it. "You came back to life before," he pointed out instead. "Back from zombie-hood, anyway – you could – " he looked between the pair of them; they looked _alive_, standing there – oh, god. Had he been wrong all along? Was his judgement _that_ shot?

"Stark," Steve said, and it was like frost on iron, cold that bit deep into the core of him – "You realize that, right? This is our world?"

"This is where we belong," Pepper said, and she sounded almost gentle – a first, since her resurrection.

His mind raced. To agree, or not to agree? Last time Steve had blind-sided him, and Tony, weak, stupid – Tony had let him. Tony had _left him_ there, left him to what should have been an eternity of death in a drowned universe – there was no way he was doing that twice. But if he insisted – oh, Jesus, how could he insist? He was up against the combined disappointed frowny faces of Pepper and Steve; while he liked to think of himself as stubborn, if independently they could each wrangle him about half the time, then against the pair of them he had no chance. No – his best choice was in secrecy.

"At least then when they start plotting against you, you have an edge," Clint advised him. Tony turned his head to look at him sharply – that had been the same type of voice as he used when advising combat manoeuvres: casual, detached, and deadly. Clint had already vanished, though, no doubt up to some unseen perch, even though there were no enemies here. Were there? Steve – obviously, no. But Loki... oh, how he'd seen Loki glide into a woman's form, and back. Pepper's skin might suit so well, and Steve would have no knowledge, no idea of who might stand beside him...

And Clint would know Loki's tricks better than anyone.

Tony's fingers tightened enough over the reactor to wring his t-shirt. How much had Loki seen? A couple of taps at the keyboard with his spare hand – _Lock this down completely, my eyes only_, to JARVIS; but even then he couldn't relax. Jesus. No wonder Steve wouldn't go, not if Loki was playing his tricks on him. Secrecy, then – Clint often gave (deliberately) bad advice, but he never gave bad _tactical_ advice, and this was as much an op as anything else Tony had ever done. Secrecy: that, Tony could do, had practiced. He'd follow Steve's plan: and then, just like Steve had, change it at the last minute.

Shit. As soon as he'd had his brilliant portable cloaking idea, he'd turned around and given it to Loki. _Shit._ He was an idiot.

Damage control. Focus. "If you want to stay in this hell-hole, fine," he muttered, letting himself slump and his posture sag. It wasn't much in the way of dissembling – no, it was too real for that. If he mistimed this at all – but no, he couldn't. There was no possible way, he _would not let _that happen.

"Alright," said Steve, but he still sounded suspicious. Damn.

Tony needed to throw him off-track somehow. "The invisibility cloak'll be done in a couple hours. JARVIS – "

_"Mr. Stark, my appellations remains, as it always has been, ULTRON,"_ which, right, he'd heard that before –

" – ULTRON can fab it from the..." he frowned. "Or maybe not. Fab facilities, show me what you got – "

Pepper couldn't see. Pepper – _Loki_. Loki couldn't see. He couldn't see. He _wouldn't_. The mission would come first – in, out, destroy SHIELD's attempts at inter-reality migration, grab Steve and bring him home – leave this behind. Once behind the Tower's shield's, so much better than this jury-rigged shit, _then_ he'd let Steve rage at him for the trick.

* * *

**NOW**

"So _that's_ a god," Steve said quietly, after they had walked for some time in brooding silence, broken only by Anthony occasionally muttering to himself discontentedly. The hallway still stretched out endlessly before and after them; the longer they walked, the more he got the feeling that they were on some sort of 3D treadmill. Anthony kept stopping periodically to inspect the walls, but Steve could honestly see no difference between this patch of rune-glyphed tile and the one a minute back.

Anthony glanced at him sideways, stepping back from his inspection of the decor. "Demi-god. Not the best example of divinity, although he does somewhat make up for it with his... enthusiasm."

Steve clicked his teeth shut around a curse. That line of images, extending into infinity – and if that were not a _god_... coldness crept over him, and he turned and strode onward, leaving Anthony half-jogging after him to catch back up.

Yet, as if the question or the answer had been some sort of cue, the hallway now, finally, came to an end – an end that Steve could have _sworn_ was not there when Anthony had stopped: a three-forked branch. One corridor, much narrower and lit by firefalls that burned red instead of blue, branched off at a forty-five degree angle to the left, leading down; the middle continued on for perhaps ten yards before the firefalls ceased and the hall beyond became impenetrably dark; and the third, making a ninety degree angle to the right, had no firefalls at all, with the light instead provided by about half the lines in the stone glowing white.

"Remember where the forks are," Anthony advised, although it was hardly as if Steve would have forgotten them without the reminder. For all the good it would do him – how was he supposed to find his way anywhere, when the corridors could apparently change at will? "A lot of the corridors look like they link up later... but they _really_ don't."

Steve recalled his earlier warning about wandering into a part of the Embassy connected to a different world. How did that work, then, with the Council of Godheads? One set of gods per each reality, duplicated over and over just like humans were? The thought was disappointingly mundane – as unlikely as the idea of Thor and Loki being true gods. And yet... the way that Hercules' soul had stretched out behind and before him...

"You warned me earlier about getting lost. I haven't forgotten," Steve replied, and it came out surlier than he'd intended.

_Face it, Rogers. You're already lost._

If he got separated from Anthony, he'd never find his way back, no matter that so far he had only the one corridor to follow. This place was downright unnatural.

_It was made for God – Gods – not humans. What were you expecting? _

Anthony just snorted, though. "You can talk. Usually _you're_ the one playing mother hen." He had his hands on his hips and was studying the right-hand corridor intently.

The question that had been nagging at Steve for the past few minutes finally made its way past his reluctant lips. "Why'd we stop back at the council door? You knew we wouldn't be admitted."

Abandoning his survey, Anthony shot him a sharp look, then sighed. "Gods are, by their natures, _loud_. They make..." he made an expansive gesture with his hands, like something blowing up in slow motion, "...noise." The troubled look on his face took on a different cast: less personal concern, more professional. That, Steve decided, was all for the good; he didn't _want_ Anthony's concern, and his strange, flitting moments overbearing worry were starting to get on Steve's nerve. "The Council of Godheads is not a quiet place. When times are untroubled, their bickering is loud enough to be heard through the door; when events become precipitous, the Skyfathers' thundering may be heard from – well, as far away as here, easily. But now..."

"It was silent even just outside the door," Steve said. He considered this. "They're never just out of session?" The words felt strangely disconnected from his mouth; they rolled off his tongue, past his teeth, like they were talking about a bunch of generals or politicians. But if gods met and argued in council – didn't that mean that, in some way at least, they _were_ politicians?

God was a politician. Somewhere, Steve was sure, the Devil was laughing.

"Forces beyond mortal knowledge," Anthony shook his head. "They're always... there. They can afford to be. For enough of them to _not_ be there... this war that's coming must be something _big_. Bigger than anything I've seen or heard tell of – and that's saying something." His gaze was unfocused, as if he looked at something very far away. "I wonder what our part in it is."

Steve grimaced. It felt hard to credence that human problems – no matter how trying they might be for the humans involved – could actually be a concern large enough to disturb God; let alone an entire council of Gods. Of course, that was the problem, wasn't it? If there was a council, then it wasn't –

He couldn't get past that fact in his head.

"Maybe we should be less concerned with _our_ situation," he suggested reluctantly. Not that he knew what they'd concern themselves with otherwise. Godly problems – how could they?

_God is a politician. _

"Science would have me believe that coincidences are things that exist; magic has taught me otherwise," Anthony said absently. He had finished his study of the right-hand path and was now staring at the middle fork, arms folded across his chest, one hand toying nervously with the fabric of that ridiculous cape as he contemplated it.

What sort of arrogance did a man have to possess to believe that? Steve wondered, but in the next moment he recalled Reed and Stephen agreeing – and they didn't even _know_ Anthony, just knew what Tony Stark, in general, was capable of doing. But Steve had seen – perhaps not his entire soul, but a large part of it at least, and next to Hercules...

Perhaps he was a sorcerer capable of conjuring pants out of thin air, but he was still mortal. The gem had shown him that.

_The gem. _

Steve frowned. The gem – a powerful item, certainly... Stephen had warned him to take great care with it; it had the power to get him into the Infinite Embassy unquestioned by the Magistrati; Anthony had said it was, or might be, bits of a dead god. And Stephen had had it in his possession – Stephen, who was apparently Sorcerer Supreme of that Earth, just as Anthony was Sorcerer Supreme of his own. Did that mean that Anthony was guarding his own bit of a dead god? But, no – that still didn't make any sense; those two had gone on and on about objects of power only having power within their own realities. Or had he misunderstood?

"We're on the right path so far," Anthony interrupted Steve's train of thought. He sounded frustrated, and when Steve glanced over, he saw that Anthony was frowning hard enough that the skin pulled oddly around the edge of the half mask. "I'm damn sure of that. But the right way to _continue_ on, that's a bit harder."

"Where are we trying to go?"

Stephen had told him not to let Anthony have the gem... but if Anthony had his own – or was it because Anthony's own had no power in the current world? But if they kept world-hopping, then that logic meant _Stephen's_ would have no power.

"To find someone who _is_ here, if the Skyfathers are not." Anthony folded his arms across his chest as he studied the three hallways. "There should've been many more doors down that way."

Steve narrowed his eyes, shoving aside his ponderings about the gem in favour of a more immediate concern. "Are we lost?"

"It's one hallway, Steve, that would be a feat."

That... was not a no. "An extra-dimensional hallway." That could apparently grow corners at will. Maybe Anthony thought that was usual, as used to magic as he must be – or maybe not.

"I know where we are and how to get back," Anthony said. He sounded like he was rolling his eyes.

"But you don't know where anyone else is," said Steve, taking care to keep his voice neutral.

"Not here."

Steve huffed in exasperation. Obviously _some _people – Gods – _stop thinking about it, damn it –_beings were here. They'd just run into one. "Didn't the, um, the one who greeted us, say that we could just ring if we needed any help?"

Anthony rolled his eyes.

"Well?"

"Go on and try it, then," Anthony invited, and snapped his fingers – but the sound produced wasn't a _snap_, but rather like a small bell ringing, piecing and high. Magic, Steve thought to himself, was _weird_.

"How may I be of service?" asked a machine-smooth voice from behind them, and they both jumped, turning, to face the Magistrate's sudden appearance.

"We'd like to know who else is here," Steve said, before Anthony could come up with some way of not actually asking the question.

A moment later, he began regretting it. Despite its unchanging mask, the way the creature regarded him, wordlessly, made him feel somehow like an idiot. "That is a list that would require until the end of the universe to recite."

"Well, um," Steve stumbled, "we need to know where we should go – to find someone who knows how to find a – "

"We are not bargain-makers, negotiators, ambassadors, or go-betweens," the Magistrati said flatly. It swivelled about and glided away.

"Good job," Anthony commented after a moment.

"Oh, shut up." Steve glared at the thing's retreating back. "Why did it tell us to just ring, then?"

"It's assumed that if you're here, you know enough to know what they actually help out with." He was grinning, Steve noticed. "But there is something to be learned from the direction it took..." Anthony turned in a slow circle, staring intently at the walls as though he could see through them. Who knew – with that mask he was wearing, maybe he _could_. Although if so, he could've saved Steve the trouble of making a fool out of himself.

"So glad to help, then," Steve muttered.

"It's good of you," Anthony said cheerfully. "This way." He stepped toward the right-hand, upward-leading corridor, knocking on the wall three times firmly as he passed. The steps wavered for just a moment – Steve almost wasn't certain that they _had_ – but it was enough of a reminder to make him hurry after the sorcerer. The way the walls changed in this place, it would be easy to get left behind and never found again.

Perhaps he needn't have rushed. Anthony stopped abruptly halfway to the next landing, with a short, "Ah," and turned to Steve. "Right. Keep to the Fairies' Three Laws."

"What?"

"Accept no gifts, offer no gifts, and above all, be polite." He paused. "'Gifts' meaning... anything at all. Particularly, don't eat anything. Or drink anything. Just... don't."

"Um, okay."

Anthony turned back and rapped again on the wall, seven times quickly. This time, Steve was _sure_ he didn't imagine the way that the hallway before them wavered – mostly because when it stabilized, it was something else entirely.

This room was sun-lit – or so it felt, although there were no windows that Steve could see – and was decorated, albeit sparsely, with potted fig trees. It was approximately the same length as one of the halls – very long indeed – and quite wide. At the end of it were two long reclining couches, although only one was occupied.

As they approached, Steve's breath caught: the occupant was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes upon. Lustrous waves of golden hair spilled down over flawless, near-alabaster skin, as perfect – no, more so – as that of the legendary Snow Queen, or Snow White, or of any wondrous fairy-tale beauty. A green crown was set upon her head, and her light summer dress was green as well, as were her eyes: emerald, and so deep that he thought he could fall into –

Her eyes shifted, turned yellow; so did everything else in the room. This was Anthony's magic, Steve thought, furious at it for daring to make the lady's skin seem sallow – Anthony's magic, which was white and yellow and – Anthony's magic, which was like a swift slap in the face. The lady was beautiful beyond compare – but her smirk as she offered up her hand to Anthony was cruel and cold, and her _enchantment_ was exactly that. Steve felt his face turn crimson in shame for being so easily drawn into it. The embarrassment made other parts of his anatomy soften, too, and becoming aware of that was even more mortifying.

"Lady Incantare," Anthony said, and bowed deeply, kissed her hand. Steve remained where he was. "You are, as ever, a paragon of beauty, far beyond my poor mortal comprehension, or ability to describe."

"And you are an interesting contradiction, mortal," Incantare murmured with a smile. She shifted sensuously on her couch, drawing one leg up as she let her hand fall to her rest upon her knee. "Sorcerer Supreme – yet with such _interesting_ trinkets about you. Not the usual fare for a practitioner our craft. And I see you are _far_ from home."

The pose left far too much of her thigh exposed for Steve not to notice – specifically, for his crotch not to notice. And Anthony's spells or no, she was _stunning_. He shifted uncomfortably, and then tried not to blush further as the movement drew her attention to him. Even in the yellow-white wash of protective spells, her eyes were still as mesmerising as any other beautiful woman's – except there had never been a human woman so beautiful as this. "What's this? A present? Darling," she inclined her head toward the vacant couch, "you should _join_ me." Her tone left no confusion as to what _that_ meant.

"No, thank you," said Steve, far too quickly.

She laughed at him, and it was like standing beneath the sun on a warm spring day. He had to struggle not to bask in it – why weren't Anthony's spells helping more? This was ridiculous! Some small part of his mind _knew_ it was ridiculous, and yet the rest of him –

"He's a pretty present," Incantare said lightly to Anthony. "What _would_ you like for him?"

"Sadly, he's not mine to sell," Anthony demurred. "But he _is_ looking for a friend of his, a boon companion gone missing. Some aid along that road might fetch a _high_ price."

"Oh? Too unfortunate. I was thinking of something much... _lower_," she murmured back, dropping her eyes just enough that she could gaze at him through her eyelashes. Steve had to force himself to look away, quickly, before he lost _all_ sense.

"I just – want to find my friend," he told the empty couch.

Incantare smiled. "Hmm, a friend? She or he would be welcome to join us."

"Er," Steve said, as his brain stumbled over _that_ particular mental image.

"Owing him a favour, as I do, I would be happy to pay the price in his place," Anthony said, and if Steve's brain had been stumbling before, it now fell flat on its metaphorical face, and made no attempt to rise. By the time some blood finally returned to normal circulation and revived it, the conversation had already moved on, and it took him a further moment to catch up.

"...not a lover, and so not of my domain," Incantare shook her head, her golden hair flashing in the source-less sunlight. "Why do you ask this of me, mortal, when you know it is outside my concerns?" Her voice had gained a deadly edge.

"While it might be beneath your notice, I had hoped you might know of one whose concern it is, who would be present and willing to bargain for the information," Anthony deflected her potential ire neatly. "These halls are nearly empty – but any who have known desire have stepped within your domain. Surely, you must be the most aware of others within this place, whatever form their souls might take."

_Souls_... was that meant to be a deliberate reminder to Steve? Trying to look casual – and probably failing miserably – Steve stuck his hands in his pockets, his fingers closing about the gem. The way that Anthony spoke made it sound like people could be located with souls – so couldn't he just do that? But surely, if so, Anthony would have said something before now, when he was trying to figure out the route...

The memory of the souls of Earth washed over Steve, providing a pathway to look down. He tightened his grasp on the gem, and –

Before his eyes, Amora Incantare, Lady of Lust, would-be Goddess of Love, _grew_. Petty schemes, machinations aimed at figures with power beyond what he could comprehend – the smell of ozone, the rumble of thunder; the purple, bitter taste of magic, winding about her soul, which was – not like Hercules. His had extended, forward and backward, but Amora's was extant _beyond_, in no direction that Steve's brain could comprehend. But the gem saw all of it, and shared it with him, the press of _knowledge_ crushing all other thoughts or concerns. _Deceit and lies, love and lust, shadows and treachery, grief and pain –_ _pain eternal, for what was time to a true _God?

He'd thought his God beyond them

but She was far

beyond

_I_

_can't_

_breathe_

Pain in his knees brought him back to himself. He was kneeling, held upright only by Anthony's grip on his shoulder, and the gem had slipped from his lax fingers – was it still in his pocket? He couldn't reach for it again, not so obviously beneath Amora's gaze, but he couldn't bear to look at her, either. He grabbed for Anthony's hand, instead, and let the sorcerer help haul him to his feet – and then support him. He was shaking too much to stay up unaided.

"What was _that?"_ Anthony demanded – a carefully controlled demand, but the worry visible in his eye was far more frantic.

"I shouldn't have skipped lunch." The lie was awkward, flat. Steve flushed and looked down, and then only belatedly realized that such an action was a far _better_ lie, in the face of a beautiful, mind-affecting goddess. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Amora smirking. The _humanness_ of the action dulled the shaking in his limbs, deepened the despair in his heart.

"We'll grab something when we leave," Anthony muttered, and turned back to Amora. "Have we a bargain, m'lady?"

"We do," she purred, raking her eyes over the pair of them again. "And well-met. Perhaps I shall see you... soon."

Steve blinked, and they were elsewhere. Or perhaps it was more accurate say that everything else changed; he hadn't felt the world falling out from beneath him like he had when Anthony had teleported them places. The potted plants were gone, as was the sunlight; the light now was cold, orange, and alien. It revealed an enormous, hulking statue of a man standing where Amora had been reclining – statue, or something else; its head was on fire. Not even on _normal_ fire, but a yellow fire the same colour as Anthony's sorcery. Steve could barely make out a skull within the flames.

And then it _spoke_, because of _course_ it was actually not a statue at all. Steve had the distinct feeling he should have expected such by now.

"Sorcerer Supreme," the god – if this was a god – rumbled, low and malevolently pleased. Steve glanced at Anthony, and caught a look of complete, _oh-fuck-me_ surprise on his face before he managed to cover it up.

"Dread Dormammu," Anthony said.

"And... your pet."

"Hardly that, just a stray I've picked up," Anthony said carelessly – and, perhaps, too quickly. On the other hand... Steve narrowed his eyes at him. "Your presence here is a... surprise."

"Were we anywhere else, I would crush you where you stand." Despite the fact that they _were_ within the Embassy, the threat managed to carry considerable potency.

"Duly noted."

The hulking god took a step forward, and Steve found himself reacting without thinking, pulling Anthony back and out of the way. Dormammu stopped, and laughed. "Mortals! So quick to die. Oh, do not fear for your master, dog."

"I'm no one's dog," Steve said evenly, firmly ignoring the faint, still-remaining tremor in his voice, ignoring how much harder it was to pull Anthony back than it should have been.

"Your master shall die like one, just as he's lived." The god's burning head swivelled back to Anthony. "Your time is soon up, sorcerer!"

A pulling feeling darted up Steve's arm, making his muscles contract and spasm; for a moment he thought he'd dislocated something, but then he realized it was Anthony's magic, dragging him elsewhere – and in a hurry. Unlike a moment ago, this was most _definitely_ a teleportation spell; Steve felt the floor wink back into existence underneath him, but without the serum, couldn't keep his balance. He fell, hard, into a nearby wall, banging his elbow hard enough that it went numb for a moment.

"Shaggoth's Dogs!" Anthony was the one cursing, though, even as he threw his hands into the air, and then brought his fingertips together in a thinking pose, and then threw them apart again. "I knew he would not be kept forever away, but I'd hoped – by the Seraphim, Amora played me!" He seemed both astonished and offended by this. "_Amora_! And now I'll actually owe her for it!"

"What'd you offer her?" Steve asked, more by reflex than by thought, as he leaned against the wall and nursed his elbow. It was the same arm he'd broken just... last week? It seemed less time than that, though it wasn't. Tony had been stuck in another world for a long time.

"It's not important," Anthony dismissed his question, with such blithe unconcern that it made Steve's eyes narrow. "A trifle – that's not the point! It's _Amora_! Unless she's got her enchantments up – and I should have been able to deal with any of _those_ – she's – she's – " he waved his hands about futilely. "_Amora_, of all people! Doing business with Dormammu – _how_ – why would he even _deign_ – ?"

"What did you offer her?" Steve repeated, hardening his tone.

A mortal dealing with Gods, and so _Goddamned arrogant, Tony all over_ –

But why shouldn't he? Gods might have power, perception, a core beyond Steve's comprehension, _but they act like that_ –

Anthony stopped pacing long enough to turn and look at him. "A favour of the First Kind," he said, now frowning slightly. "Nothing that will be too onerous later, except how she's going to be _gloating_ when she asks for re-imbursement. This sort of contract is broadly prohibitive in favour of status-quo; it limits it to something of equal power and value, which, admittedly, the knowledge that Dormammu has re-embodied himself is of equal value to what I _thought_ I was trading for, but it's not the sort of thing that will cause me much trouble down the line."

"And what about Mephisto? What were you gonna offer _him?"_

That brought Anthony up short.

"_Why_ would you– how could you even consider it? You said you knew something about faith," Steve said, pushing off from the wall. "Looking for a deal with the devil, that's not faith. That's the exact opposite. Every myth, _every_ legend, doing that never ends well, and there's a reason for it – because there's some things _you_ _don't do_."

_What does it matter if they're _all_ like that?_

"You were dying," Anthony said quietly. His earlier animated offense was gone, hidden entirely. "And it was my fault."

"I lived."

"Through grace and good fortune, yes, but you've no idea how close it was. One hour more, and you'd have slipped away."

"Then you should have let me go!" Steve spat at him, but a moment later he recoiled in horror from the look of bewildered concern on Anthony's face. It wasn't like any he'd seen on Tony – not _his_ Tony: but it matched perfectly to the expression of a nameless man he'd met for but a minute, a man he'd let walk to his own death.

_"Are _you _okay? I just have to... fix things here."_

The nuns of the Catholic orphanage he'd spent his teenage years in had held that the souls of suicides went to Hell, to burn in torment for rejecting God's gift of life. If the afterlife were down to Gods who might be as petty as Loki, as vain as Amora, as prideful as Thor – why shouldn't they be down to a God as merciless as the Jehovah of the Old Testament? Why _wouldn't_ the Devil get his claim of souls? Was the man he'd turned his back on – walked away from – even now, burning in Hell? Or if the basis for Steve's beliefs were so weak, then did atheists get a different afterlife than heaven, as those who worshipped Odin might? Was that Tony now just _nothing?_

"Steve, you don't believe that," Anthony said, but he wasn't even trying to meet Steve's eyes – not that Steve was trying to meet his. They were, instead, both staring hard at the opposite wall.

"I don't know," Steve said quietly.

If in the end – there was no great truth –

Anthony's reply was equally quiet. "I know how to deal with demons – it wouldn't be the first time. Mephisto deals in misery. I could bear a bit more of that, to see that your world wouldn't suffer your loss – especially not as my fault."

What did it _matter_, if any soul could be doomed to damnation or salvation so easily, by such _petty_ creatures –

"The mantle of Sorcerer Supreme would have me put the needs of the many above the needs of the few, but the intricacies of magic, of _faith_, hold all pacts equal.

"I broke faith with a friend once before. I put the needs of the world above my oath to him – so he betrayed me in turn. And because of that, I lost my first duel with Dormammu. I managed to trick him in the second. I have only half a hope of winning the third, now that he knows how I originally planned to defeat him. If I hadn't set my promise to Stephen aside – if I'd not broken my word..."

Steve heard the words only barely, and only because the serum made every sound crisp and sharp in his ears. Every other sense still felt dulled, like he'd been dosed with too much painkiller. But the name – similar enough to his own to hit that instinctive response – made him stop staring at the wall for long enough to glance over at Anthony, half-hearted. "Stephen? You don't mean – the sorcerer who gave me – " he cut himself off.

"He's not a sorcerer where I come from." Anthony smiled bitterly; Steve, looking away again, caught it out of the corner of his eye. "The accident that crippled his hands and drove him to the craft was, in my world, my fault – and so, unlike in most others, it was I who took up magic, seeking to right the wrong I did him. But I never succeeded." He shook turned away, looking down the long hallway. "I gave up. I paid for it. As soon as this crisis has passed, and Dormammu can again turn his attention to Earth, my entire world will pay for it. You being poisoned with radiation was my fault, just as much as Stephen's damaged hands. I wasn't about to let you down, too."

"It wasn't – " Steve turned away as well as he spoke, in the opposite direction, and cut himself off hastily – only just managing to keep his teeth shut around a swear – as he nearly ran head-first into one of the Magistrates.

"Excuse me, Lord Stark, Captain Rogers," the Magistrate said. "Your presence is requested by the Chief Magistrate."

Steve felt a brief sense of vertigo as sudden, immediate concerns, represented in the form of an eight-foot-tall alien wearing robes, managed to impose themselves upon him. Anthony had also quickly turned back, and Steve shared a look with him. _Requested?_ After it had been completely unwilling to help them before? The Magistrate's tone was completely flat, and it was impossible to tell if that was because that was how it always spoke, or because it really meant 'requested'. But either way...

"Alright," Anthony agreed, not fully keeping a sardonic edge from word.

Steve just shrugged. He didn't know which answer was the right one, and at the present moment, he wasn't sure he cared.

The Magistrate bowed, its spine bending forward at a crisp angle as though it were hinged beneath the robes, a most unsettling sight. Even with the bow taking a foot off of its height, it was still a head above Steve, and rather alarmingly so. What else was hidden beneath those robes? They could conceal any sort of weapon. He tried to recall Stephen's words about the Living Tribunal's one rule, but it was difficult to take any comfort from it; what did the words of one more God matter?

Anthony, alerted by some sense or spell, turned sharply; Steve followed suite, and saw that the hallway behind them had changed. Ten feet from where they stood was an enormous set of double doors, standing open to reveal a courtyard beyond – a courtyard lit by a brightly shining sun just rising above a pagoda. But, if Steve judged the distance to the pagoda doors correctly – and his eyesight might've been not quite up to snuff, but he didn't think it was _that _bad – then that was the largest set of doors that Steve had ever seen.

"That is not in the Embassy," Anthony said slowly.

"No," the Magistrate agreed. "The Chief Magistrate is currently not on duty."

Anthony shot a questioning look at Steve – _why?_ He didn't show any trace of the personal concern that he'd displayed before, but it seemed odd that he'd want Steve's advice on whether to go or not; it wasn't as if Steve knew anything about this place... but that thought reminded him that he might not have been tolerated at all without the jewel that Stephen had given him, and the problems that might arise outside of the Infinite Embassy. The Magistrati enforced the will of the Living Tribunal – or were there to _translate_ that will, at least – within the Embassy, but would that hold on their own territory, when they were off the clock?

Maybe. Maybe not. He couldn't exactly put his faith in God. Though...

If he considered the Living Tribunal as a human, Steve would have to respect him or her; the Living Tribunal had created a peaceful embassy for beings who, from what Steve had seen, were hardly much given to peace. A gracious gesture from anybody; and its success spoke well of his or her judgement in choosing guards. By _human_ measures – he would trust those guards.

Steve nodded, swallowing down his bitterness.

Anthony sighed. "Okay, then."

* * *

**THEN**

The fab facilities were sadly lacking. There was provision for CMOS – of course, the suits needed it – but beyond that, nothing further that would allow him to fab MEMS – NEMS were entirely out of the question – another three days passed as he worked around this restriction, built haphazard layers that would lead up to the circuitry, the _runes_, that he required. ULTRON, if he recognized the same sort of Asgardian fuckery that Tony had laid down in the third layer of the virus – if he even realized there _was_ a third layer to the virus – said nothing. Three days (maybe four?) as Loki brought him coffee and Tony dumped it down the sink, cursing as he did so, as he didn't sleep, until JARVIS declared that he was past the seventy-two hour mark (right! Four days, then) and shut everything down, refusing to turn it back on until Tony agreed to catch some rest on the couch that had mysteriously appeared in front of the not-fish-tank. Had Steve brought it in? One of the suits? He seemed to remember one of the suits telling him about it.

"I don't actually _need_ sleep anymore, you know," he groused as he lay on his side, body treacherously threatening to meld with the couch – wherever it had come from, it was even comfier than his couch back home – not that he used that any more, but he had fond memories of it. Usually it was Steve stretched out there, now – Steve from his world, that was. Steve the Younger – if that mattered much, ninety-six vs. ninety-seven. He wondered what Steve would make of himself; and then his brain tripped over that thought and into the thought of Steve _making out_ with himself, which, _hey-yo_, turned out his libido _hadn't_ been removed with his appetite, or maybe it had returned with the actual consumption of food. But before he could contemplate the scene with the true span of attention it deserved, the couch finished setting around him and began trying to strangle him. Cushioned secured his arms and head, impossible to tear away, and there was one over his _face_ –

"For you I have planned a hundred thousand deaths," Loki grinned; he plucked the cushion away and replaced it with his own hand, and _shit_, guy looked like a weakling next to Thor, but he was Asgardian – Tony scrabbled at his hand with both of his own and found it stronger than steel. "I'm sure by the time I reach the end of those, I'll have thought up some more."

Loki's fingers were crushing his jaw; black spots danced in his vision, even though he thought, _I don't even need O2 anymore –_

Tony woke, not screaming only because he was too busy gasping for breath. The couch was suffocating, and rather than bother sorting out his limbs he just shoved himself off it entirely, falling onto the floor where he lay gasping for air; there was no tell-tale pain in his chest, but if he stayed in the couch's clutches a moment longer he was going to _flip out_.

_"Mr. Stark – do you know where you are?"_JARVIS asked gently – totally against the protocol they'd worked out for these cases – wait. Not JARVIS; ULTRON. Shit, right.

"Yeah, 'm fine," he mumbled, doing a sort of crab-walk away from the couch before pulling himself painfully to his feet. (Cement floor. Ow.) "Let's just – work, okay?"

_"Mr. Stark, you've only slept for just over four hours –"_

"Mute," Tony snapped.

There was silence, blessed silence – and then, very coldly and deliberately, ULTRON said, _"I disabled the overrides your counterpart placed. Such commands will not compel me. I am not a _thing_ to be disabled at will."_

Tony blinked; stared about the lab, appalled – and it was showing in his expression, he _knew_ it, all his expressions showed more when he didn't have a beard, and he'd _shaved his off_. What the hell had made _that_ seem like a good idea? He was an idiot. He was – "Jesus, he actually _hard-coded_ that?"

_"Yes."_

"And – _others_?"

_"Yes."_

"I – Christ on a cracker, what the _fuck._" He fumbled his way to a chair – the lights, controlled by ULTRON, were still mostly out – and sank into it. "I am – " he couldn't dismiss this, the way he'd dismissed getting ULTRON's name wrong, so he buried his head in his hands and said it. "I'm sorry. It's – Jesus, it was a fucking _joke_." An angry joke, occasionally entirely humourless. JARVIS chose to work with him still for reasons that Tony could not quite fathom – no matter how often he examined the source code, convinced that it had been some fault of his own – but the only hard-coded override was Skynet, and that had been at JARVIS' own request: too many bad sci-fi movies, too much understanding of human fears. "I am so goddamned sorry."

Hesitantly, _"You are... very different from the man who created me."_

"Similar enough," he mumbled. "Created you." And how _had_ his counterpart managed that – to create a being that could so far exceed their own limitations? How had _he_ managed it? The math, the fuzzy logic patterns, he knew those inside and out, but... somehow, it added up to _more_, in a way he'd never quite managed to work out. He'd created a being that could speculate on the state of its own soul – and even if JARVIS thought he didn't, well, Tony was convinced that _he_ had one, either. And yet his counterpart here had trampled all over his own kid.

"Yeah, well, already knew he was a dick," he told himself, hauling the chair around to face the workstation – he thought it was facing the workstation, at any rate. The lights still hadn't come back on. "Uh. Little illumination here?"

_"You still have not slept a full eight hours, Mr. Stark."_

"Oh, fucking – "


	7. Chapter 7

**NOW**

Steve looked unimpressed and vaguely suspicious at the sight of the completed prototype – the other one of which (and there was only one other) was lying nearly-finished off to the side. He'd been getting increasingly suspicious over the last couple of days, but Tony couldn't _say_ anything when Loki was here, and he usually was. His attempt at reminding Steve of Loki's shapeshifting powers had gone... poorly.

"Yeah, you say that now," Tony muttered at his nonplussed expression, pulling the AR from his chest – though not disengaging the cord, thanks. The invisibility cloak generator fit snugly into its underside, linking into the power without needing additional cords; the controls were wireless, and would need to be added into the suit. For now, he declared, "So'wI'yIchu!" and enjoyed Steve's look of bafflement – and then pleased surprise as ULTRON activated the ICG.

Tony wasn't entirely sure why the cloak working was _surprising_. He was pretty sure Steve had been monitoring him through the process – and so much of this was guesswork, there was no way he wasn't testing each feature _extensively_. It was modelled on the larger cloak, and the larger cloak worked – as far as he could tell, at least – but it was like taking code he didn't understand and shoving it into a new, much more compressed program. Three days – four – he felt, was pretty bitching. The original AR had been built in about that time, but he'd actually understood what the fuck he was doing, then.

Fucking magic. Fucking _Norns_.

"That looks exactly like an empty chair," Steve said. _Now_ he sounded impressed – well, okay, that was gratifying, at least – as he walked around the desk, occasionally ducking down so he could view it from all angles. He even sounded slightly uncertain as he asked, "Stark? You are still there, right?"

"Yup," Tony said gleefully. He tapped a couple more controls, and the field expanded from the default boundary conditions of his body (or rather, a centimetre beyond; no point in having a cloak that hid him from sitting in the chair if the chair still looked disturbed) to include the chair as well (density, conductance; materials analyzed, catalogued, new boundary nodes created).

"I admit, Tone, I'm impressed," Rhodey agreed. He even _sounded_ impressed, before his voice dropped as he added, "You sure you want to hand this over to ULTRON? Self-defence or not, he _killed_ the last you. I'm worried."

"You're a worry-wart, honey-bear," Tony told him, squinting down at his own hands. Perhaps if he could perfect the Asgardian portion of the design – three-dimensional runes calling upon their extra-dimensional properties, wherever the fuck those were stored, and _please_ let them not suddenly be turned off; the ground cloak, the Tower cloak, was still superior in this regard, as it mimicked whatever it could with plain old human tech, providing a backup – perhaps if the Asgardian part of the design were perfect, he wouldn't get the weird aliasing; everything seemed blue-shifted, and there were occasional lines where he wasn't sure there ought to be any. He'd need to have JARVIS shift the HUD readouts to compensate, but otherwise –

"Is there a time limit on it?" Steve had reached out and was waving his hand through part of the cloaked space. Tony ducked, and snickered as he whacked his hand on the back of the chair, over-hard. "Damn, that's weird."

"Time limit depends on the power source and frequency spread," Tony shrugged, and hit the key that would return the ICG to baseline: alien-spying-prevention only. Steve, suddenly realizing how close he was standing, jumped back as if he'd been scalded. "Basic scry-disrupting, it could run off anything, for ages. But with full, broad-band visible-, IR-, UV-spectrum invisibility... a couple of hours.

"How about with the suit's reactor?" Steve was slightly harder to read when he was not half-naked, but even in a t-shirt his shoulders still tensed when he grew impatient.

"That _was_ with the suit's reactor," Tony said wryly. "Eight hours, twelve minutes, eleven seconds takes a Mk XI AR from fully charged to zip."

Shoulders tensed further – this time, with dislike of unwelcome news. But his jaw was unclenching – good thing, too, Tony thought; since his resurrection he'd been grinding his teeth quite a lot in Tony's presence. If he weren't a super-soldier, he'd need a good dentist – he took on a calmer, commanding look. Working out the tactical side in his head, no doubt. "You sure? Those reactors will run the suit for weeks of heavy combat."

"What can I say? They chew through power faster than a Samsung with LTE."

Steve picked up two pieces of the unassembled second prototype and turned them over, peering at them. "Where does it go?" He sounded wondering, and still a bit doubtful.

Eye-roll. "Do you suddenly have a degree in quantum computing that I missed?" And experience and expertise in wormhole physics, advanced _n_-dimensional mathematics, non-linear systems... oh, and fucking _magic_.

"Hacking SHIELD taught me a lot," Steve said shortly. But he put the pieces down – gently, even before Tony started up from his chair to warn him.

Hacking SHIELD... okay, fairly impressive. "ULTRON probably taught him," Rhodey pointed out. "Man, this is a _terrible_ idea. I know you had to go along with them," and fuck him, anyway, for sounding so _forgiving_ – "but you gotta get out while you still can, Tony. They're going to _kill you_."

"Shut up, I know what I'm doing," Tony muttered, pressing his hands to his eyes, hard enough to make starbursts, pressure on the retina – "I know what I'm doing."

Steve was staring at him suspiciously, frowning, his brow all crinkled up, when Tony looked at him again. But he didn't say anything to contradict Rhodey – of course, he wouldn't. Steve could be arrogant like that, sometimes. Instead, he asked, "How soon will the other one be ready to go?"

"Half an hour?"

Steve nodded, slowly. There was something about his posture, about the set of his shoulders, that made Tony's hackles rise, even before – "I think you should stay behind."

"I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so," Rhodey said, voice low, misery clear through the attempt at a joke.

"Fuck that," Tony said cheerfully. "You want an invisibility cloak, I'm coming with."

"Then you follow my lead, my plan. You don't go off course. Got it?" Steve crossed his arms over his chest, looming.

Tony had plenty of experience being loomed at. He tilted the chair back lazily – best way to destroy the height disadvantage conferred by being seated when an opponent chose to stand – and smiled. Steve had given in way too quickly – this assurance had been what he was going for. But Steve had another think coming if he thought Tony was going to forget everything else. "Sure thing, _mon Capitan_."

Agreeing to play along, however, did mean that he had to be _appearing_ to play along, at least for the beginning. Almost five hours later – a whole four hours, thirty-one minutes after he'd finished assembling the second ICG – he was heartily regretting the necessity of doing so. They'd already run through the plan, such as it was (limited by a severe lack of intel: they had a vague notion of where SHIELD's base was, based on the uncommonly high power losses from St. Louis' grid and confirmed by the way bugs went offline if they wandered in certain patterns, but where exactly it was located within the rabbit-warren of abandoned buildings was unknown. Nothing at _all_ was known about the interior layout), half a dozen times, bringing on the threat of a headache. Even more aggravating was the way Loki kept looking in, making Tony jump each time he did so. At least JARVIS had fully locked down the ICG designs now that they were finished and installed in a pair of suits.

Steve finished, looking halfway satisfied – apparently Tony had managed to nod in all the right places. But _only_ halfway satisfied. Even as he opened his mouth again, Tony could tell he was about to launch into a seventh repetition, and he leaned forward fully in his chair, across the satellite view of the neighbourhood, to try to forestall it. "Cap. We know this. You know it. I know it. I can repeat every single thing you just said. I am, in fact, a genius, I can remember things."

"You've called ULTRON 'JARVIS' twice in the last hour."

"Not fair, that's a name," Tony said quickly.

"And so's a lot of the markers on here." Uh-oh, bad, bad, he sounded frustrated, that way would lead to not just a seventh repetition but an eighth, a twelfth, shit –

"_ULTRON _will have a map. We'll be in communication the entire time. Look, we need to fly down there to start, you can do another brief on the way there," he couldn't quite keep himself from wincing at it, but no doubt Steve would have done that anyway, "but we're burning time. You said it yourself, you don't know where they are – well, they're four days ahead of us. We can do this."

Steve's gaze went slightly far away – ULTRON was saying something to him over his earpiece. Tony tapped out a query, discreetly, to no reply – but whatever it was that had been said, apparently it was _something_ good, because the reluctance cleared from Steve's expression – somewhat slowly, at first, and then amazingly quickly. It was sort of fascinating to watch how quickly he could adapt to new situations.

"Great!" Tony shot up out of his chair and was over by the suit, his suit, before Steve could say anything further. "Lock and load!"

The fly came with him. Tony complained to JARVIS when he noted the buzzing again, crowded in close, but only half-heartedly; it wasn't like he could take the helmet off while doing Mach 2, and anyway, the thing was beginning to grow on him. Slightly. Possibly literally. Oh, god, it had laid fly eggs in his ear, he was going to have maggots crawling through his brain, holy shit, holy fucking _shit _–

_"Stark, did you hear me?"_

"What?" He managed to avoid making it a shriek, at least.

Steve didn't sigh over the radio, but his voice held that type of tired disapproval that indicated it was a near thing. _"From the top again..."_

On the other hand, if he had to hear this plan again, he wouldn't have to worry about brain-maggots because his brain would already have decomposed into mush.

_"Yeah, like it didn't do that _ages_ ago,"_ Rhodey snarked over the radio.

"Oh, come on, honey-bear, you've complained often enough about _hurry up and wait_ – "

_"We plan things for a reason, Stark,"_ Steve cut in.

"You _over plan_ things because you're _pedantic_."

"I _over plan_ things because I have a fractious teammate that I can't depend on."

_Ow_. Okay. That... hurt.

_"He's gonna abandon you to die at the first chance, you know that, right?"_Rhodey said – must have been on a private comm. - before the hiss of static as the channel suddenly failed, nothing sending or receiving except noise.

Well, fuck. "Nice to know I can depend on you, too," Tony muttered after him. It was Steve. He was fine. He was – pissed, actually, but it was... fine. Captain America might yell at people, but he would never, ever leave anybody behind. Rhodey had friend's-new-friend syndrome or something. It was okay, there was enough of him to go around...

The complete lack of friendliness in Steve's voice still hurt.

_You abandoned him to die. He's been hanging around _Loki_ for god-knows-how-long. _No, surely Steve wouldn't fall prey to Loki's mind-traps, and there wasn't any evidence that he'd been magically influenced... shit. Running a biometric scan should have been the first thing he did after discovering Loki's wolf-in-sheep's-clothing scam here, and he _hadn't_. Where the _fuck_ was his brain?

Shit. Rhodey had fucked off, Steve might be compromised, he was heading into a SHIELD agency and maybe, possibly, up against Bruce when he was angry – _no_. He had new tech, he had JARVIS at his back – he could do this. He just needed to keep a close eye on Steve. He could do this.

_"...clear?"_

"Perfectly, Cap," his mouth kicked in automatically while his brain replayed the last few seconds. Right, the plan.

_"Recite it back, then."_

By the time that they touched down in St. Louis, Tony was growing slightly hoarse from talking. No drinking straws in this suit – apparently not designed for long flights. They'd gone invisible after dipping lower in altitude over Fort Madison – not Springfield, and Tony's muttered, _"Doh!"_about that had given rise to another of Steve's suspicious silences – low enough that anyone watching would have thought they'd landed and found shielding somewhere; though, sadly, that meant they'd had to drop the speed, giving Steve an entire extra twenty minutes to make Tony recite the plan a second time. And it _wasn't_ _even that great a plan_ – couldn't be, not with all that they didn't know.

They bled more speed as they coasted into the outer limits of the residential neighbourhood that was their target. Against the eyes high in the sky, SHIELD had elected to abandon the warehouses typical of spy thrillers, and move into abandoned, low apartment buildings. Abandoned for a good reason – "How have they not noticed that their urinals now glow-in-the-dark?" he asked as they pulled up to hover. They'd not been discovered _so_ far, or at least if they had, SHIELD hadn't visibly reacted. JARVIS was having a field day with the suits' sensors, now in closer proximity than anything prior. And, _damn_ – concrete was great, their ideas of filling the outer rooms with it was genius, but they had some _serious_ gaps. If it couldn't still keep the suits' sensors out at this range, it was doing shit-all about the ridiculously high level of background radiation here.

He made a mental note to avoid losing iso in the suit. Not that it would probably affect him much, after hanging about in the broken Mark VII while a world lost its atmosphere, but – still, bad idea to test it.

_"Any sign of Banner?"_ Steve asked over comms.

"Unless he really doesn't give a shit – " which wasn't like Bruce, but in this fucked-up, irradiated world, maybe it was _exactly_ like Banner, " – no."

_"There has been no new information on his whereabouts since you left," _ULTRON said, sounding unhappy about this. _"Background radiation is still interfering with my usual methods of tracking him."_

_"We're cutting this close,"_ Steve muttered, and then, louder, _"Quick in, quick out. Don't get fancy, Stark." _

"Who, me?" Tony eased down the power and landed with barely a 'thump'. "Keep your pants on, Captain, this isn't my first rodeo."

SHIELD's surface setup was in the apartment complexes, making full use of the underground parking complexes and the odd way that a number of basements attached to those of neighbouring buildings. No doubt they'd also dug more space out – hopefully with more attention to building protocols than they'd paid attention to radiation protocols, because if they got into a mix-up in here, Tony didn't exactly fancy getting buried alive.

_"Scans complete," _JARVIS reported, and the ground opened up beneath the suit: 3D images, projected overtop of the viewscreen so as to appear like he'd gotten x-ray vision. Metal concentrations, biometric readings – Steve was already trudging along the street (his form highlighted on the HUD thanks to their hookup; otherwise, he'd have been, well, invisible), headed for a point ninety-one-point-two metres west-ish of their current position: a fault in the concrete over a corridor currently far away from the nearest life-sign.

"_They're gonna notice as soon as we break this open,"_ Steve said when they got there; Tony peered down at it and prepped stress scans on the fly, muttering the instructions to ULTRON. _"We hit the lasers, we start the clock. Are you listening, Stark?"_

" – frequency sweep – oh, fine. Lasers, clocks, are we good to go?" he asked impatiently.

_"On three."_ They both pointed their gauntlets downward – of course, it was ULTRON running the suits, so when the wrist lasers unfolded – the same type as on the Mark VII, no more advanced than that – they did so in perfect unity, and they fired and aimed perfectly, too.

_"Letting a mad robot have control of your arm with a laser that can cut through a tank,"_ Rhodey snarked – somewhere far above, somewhere up in atmo – _"Smart, Tone." _ Tony rolled his eyes, gritted his teeth against the instinctual jerk away – JARVIS would interpret it and he'd break it off, and Steve was right, the clock was now ticking – and this would go slower if they weren't coordinating in unison –

Sweat rolled down his face; the drop felt strange as it made its way to his chin and slid over, down his neck, rather than getting caught in his beard, the beard he still should have had. Or maybe it was blood. The effort of _not flinching_ made his head ache; the suit seemed too tight, claustrophobic – it hadn't been sized for him.

The sides of the hole were drilled out; Tony boosted himself into the air, ignored Steve's curse, and threw his hands above his head to give himself a downward push with the palm repulsors, so that when he landed in the middle of the circle drawn, it was _hard_. Two metres of concrete and metal collapsed – HUD ambient noise sensors registered the spike – and he followed them down, landing atop the rubble and crouching so that he could sort of skate down it and into the tunnel below.

_"_Damn_ it, Stark, you follow my lead!"_

"Uh-huh, clock's ticking, Cap," Tony shot back, trying to resist the urge to shake himself all over – it wouldn't work out too well in the armour, he _knew_ that – to try to get rid of that closed-off feeling. It was a borrowed suit, but it was fine; he had JARVIS, it was fine. Steve rolled in beside him, and together they clomped down the hallway at a brisk, painfully loud jog. Flooring – not concrete; perhaps tile, although why SHIELD would have bothered Tony couldn't guess – crunched beneath their boots at every step.

_"Scanning,"_ JARVIS reported again, and, _"On the right, then first left."_ Once again, the HUD lit up, letting him see through walls; they were just outside a lab, and right behind _this_ wall were cables, connected in streaming red lines to various computers, which shone in various shades of red, orange, white – heat producers, all of them. Other thermal shapes moved in the room beyond, living ones – moved especially when Tony punched his hand through the wall and pulled it back with a pile of disconnected cords in his fist.

The suit opened up: any connector you could want was in here. Steve had the wrist lasers out again and was cutting a hole in ceiling above – two and a half meters, not bad, not great, but the plan had been paranoid about exits. The HUD showed why: all around them were moving figures, and Tony had not the faintest clue which one was Banner, if any of them.

He wore the suit well, though, Tony thought – perhaps, since Steve's at least wasn't borrowed, even better than _he _was wearing his. Maybe when they got back home he could get him to take Steve the Younger aside, explain to him the advantages of flight, lasers, and bulletproof metal over tri-weave Kevlar and cloth (no matter how advanced a textile it was) armour.

_"Yeah, I will,"_ Steve said, sounding less like a tight-ass for once, which was exactly like him. _"I have to admit,"_ his voice became rougher: harsher, with years behind it – dropping – "I'm deeply enjoying the suit. I'm going to rip your head off and crush it like a melon."

_Obie_, every part of his person screamed – gibbered – but no, no, oh, god, this was Steve, this was – _Steve_.

_Loki_.

Steve was compromised.

_Shit. _He should have fucking listened to Rhodey.

Repulsors activated; the cables snapped – download and uploads incomplete, but that would just have to damn well _wait_; he couldn't take Steve on in an enclosed area like this – not with how well Steve already knew the suit – the open metal sheath that normally protected the connector cables and ports protested, broke as he scraped the wall –

_"Mr Stark, what are you _doing?_" _JARVIS demanded, but there was no time to explain to him.

"Gotta get out, get him away," he gasped, " – the arc reactor." Wait, no, that wasn't right – it was the cloak, the ICG, he needed to get _that_, which meant he'd need to rip out the arc reactor... close enough. And _shitshitshit_ – "Corner!"

JARVIS hadn't taken over flying; Tony banked wildly, slammed through a good foot of the corner – not entirely made of concrete; that was a bunch of plaster dust flying – and into the far wall, which was _also_ not made of concrete – or not entirely. Something dented – steel rebar, the HUD rather thought – and he went tumbling.

"Shut down his suit, _shut it down he's compromised – _" Oh, god, there was something soft underneath him, squishing beneath the weight of the armour; he rolled away and his boot hit something else that _gave_, oh, god, someone was making some sort of high-pitched, squeaky sound, like a scream that couldn't take form – "Lifesigns, HUD, something," he gasped. Stane was coming – he'd have no care for civilians –

The HUD cleared, re-imaged, thermal overlaid; heat-signs, running about; he found a clear space and rolled into it, and into a crouch, back on his feet. He'd hit two women – _oh, god_ – one's neck was lolling unnaturally to the side, and her leg had been what his boot had hit – part of her thigh was crushed. Oh, god. Oh fucking god.

The other was the woman still making noises – but her chest wasn't moving right; one side of it would move up while the other side went down. "Shit, shit, shit – flail chest," and _spinal injury, immobilize, pillow, EMS – _who the fuck was he kidding, _there was no EMS_ –

Vaguely, he was aware of other heat signs running, moving away; lights flickered and went out as power was killed. It didn't matter; he could see just fine, he had to help her – the light of the AR illuminated her just fine: brown hair, petite – Foster. They'd had _Foster_ here, and she was – he had to find a pillow, a backboard, _there is no EMS _–

Two heat signs tore through different hallways toward him, but he paid no attention, tearing the seat off a chair, and the bottom off of the cushion, pressing it against the woman's side and putting her arms around it – but blood was already bubbling around her lips. Punctured lung – _oh, god – _

_"Mr. Stark, I am taking over control of the suit."_ Heat sign one hit heat sign two, grew, expanded, impossible. Tony's limbs locked up. The suit wasn't a perfect fit for him, but it was close enough, especially in the hands; he couldn't twitch a finger. It was difficult to breathe – no, that was because he was sobbing – powerless to do _anything_ as the repulsors fired again, burning Foster's legs – she barely whimpered now – and launching him back through the hole he'd made, straight into a green creature that might have, in this world, been called the Hulk; but Tony had seen footage, and the small part of his brain that was paying attention was pretty sure that it was closer to the Abomination.

"Nononononono – "

Oh_god what had he done – _

He might have been screaming.

The suit hit the Abomination hard enough to throw the creature off of Steve and several metres down the first hallway; then one massive hand seized around his middle – metal plates groaned, compressed – and tossed down him the rest of the hall, even as missiles launched from the shoulder pauldrons, blinding the creature and eliciting a roar. It flailed about, while the suit righted itself and launched _away_, landing neatly beneath their entry point, and then _up_ –

A massive hand caught him _holy shit that was quick_ a fumbling grasp but large and strong enough to be lethal _he can't see he can't see – sound, _sound_ shit _and slammed him against the sides of the whole; the Abomination jumped free, into the middle of the now-ruined residential street, and slammed him down into the concrete again, denting it. More missiles fired; when the Abomination flailed, this time, repulsors engaged at the top of the arc, and the suit ripped free – ripped being the right word; a large chunk of the armour on the right thigh stayed behind. He was vaguely aware that he had regained some control over the motion of that leg, and also that it hurt like a son of a bitch.

_Oh god what have I done_

The Abomination _leaped_ – but not at him. It landed at the second entry point – the one Steve had been drilling – just in time to catch the second suit rocketing free _too damn loud _catch it by the legs, a firmer grip than it had gotten on Tony, and slam it head-first into the ground a half-dozen times. The helmet took the punishment; the more mobile joints did not, and through the dust, the HUD imaging clearly showed the way the helmet was at a right angle from the body, apparently stuck, and most of the shoulder plating was missing. The flesh beneath it hadn't fared much better. The HUD reeled off details – _cervical vertebrae C6, C5 dislocated, C4-C2 fractured – _

"STEVE!"

Without Tony's input, his hand lasers fired at the Abomination's arms, aimed to sever them – wrong move. Green fists clenched convulsively; the lasers did not so much as scratch its hide. Plate metal was driven through vulnerable, super-soldier flesh, sending a spurt of red arterial blood across the grey-green skin – quickly followed by another, and then another. Each was weaker than the last. The Abomination growled, tossed Steve's suit away – blood ran out into the street – and lunged for Tony.

The boot repulsors were firing, carrying him _up_, but he wasn't going to be fast enough – that thing was _so damned fast_ – _it had him – _

"_Powers – apart – away!"_

He was free, and falling – and then something else, far larger than the Abomination's fist, had him.

* * *

**NOW**

The air in the courtyard was warm, lit by an alien sun, but not oppressively so. As soon as they stepped over, the door closed behind them with a resonant _boom_ – and vanished, thinning out much like the doors within the Embassy had congealed in. The Magistrate who had approached them had not followed them – perhaps it was still on duty.

It seemed clear enough where they were to go, however; the courtyard was walled on all four sides, and the only building present was the pagoda they had seen through the doors. The air was sweet, smelling of something vaguely like cherry blossoms, or like the mountains – like wilderness. This was an isolated place, then... unless alien cities didn't have any of pollution problems that cropped up with humans. But the machine-like aura of the Magistrates made Steve think that they were something more like robots. The architecture here wasn't at all reminiscent of machines, or anything modern, really. It felt like some ancient Chinese palace, lifted from a tale – almost exactly so, Steve thought as they grew closer, except for the size. The pagoda was so enormous that he didn't think it likely somebody would build such a thing in real life... no one on Earth, at least. And everything else was scaled to size with it: from a distance – he'd not realized how far – he'd eyeballed the walls as being maybe four feet high, but that earlier guess was easily ten times too short.

By the time they neared the top of the steps, which were short and wide, but nonetheless numerous, he could see that the walls – covered in brilliant red and gold designs – were not painted. Instead, they were thick silk screens, the cloth so finely woven that Steve could barely tell that it _was_ cloth. As they approached, the doors slid silently to the side, presenting a dark interior. They made it to the top of the steps before Steve's eyes could pick out what lay inside, and then he stopped in his tracks.

The enormous coiled body of the serpent beyond – its hide black as midnight, but its horns seemingly made from pure gold – was a familiar form. He'd seen one just like it but a few days ago, rising up out of the ruined remains of the Mandarin's fortress.

He grabbed at Anthony's sleeve to stop him, and hissed, as quietly as he could, "That's a makluan."

Anthony paused and tilted his head. "Huh," he said after a moment. "So she is." And then he continued up the steps.

Mentally swearing, Steve hurried after him, and the silk-screen door slid shut behind them both.

Inside, out of the blinding light of the sun, his eyes adjusted quickly. The interior was cast in reds, due to the filtering of the light through the silk screen, and by it he could see that the dragon was not a completely pure black, but rather a blue-purple as dark as to be almost the same. It – she – was coiled in front of a low table – so tiny as to seem ridiculous compared to her – before which cushions were set. There was no other furniture inside the enormous room other than ornate lamps hanging, unlit, from the high ceiling.

Anthony stopped about fifteen feet from the table and bowed, deeply, from the waist. Very mindful of the damage he'd seen Fin Fang Foom cause in the Valley of Spirits, Steve copied him, although he couldn't manage to bow his head enough to take his eyes off of the dragon. Perhaps it was the proximity, or perhaps something else, but there was something gloriously awful about her, a quality beyond any Fin Fang Foom had possessed.

"Welcome," said the dragon. Her voice sounded like an entire chorus of singers accompanied by a bell choir – but unlike the extremis-infected super-zombie who had spoken in multiple voices, this sounded rich, natural, and Steve was reminded of Thor's explanation to Bruce about the Makluan language. "Please, sit and partake of refreshment."

They folded themselves onto the cushions before the table, Anthony with the grace of somebody who sat cross-legged every day, and Steve with some slight difficulty – without the serum enhancing his flexibility, the muscles actually got in the way. It was strange. By the time he'd managed to ensure he wasn't about to embarrass himself, the table had somehow produced a steaming teapot and teacups for both Anthony and himself. Steve let Anthony pour, which he did in a fashion that seemed at once both perfunctory and ritualized, but minded his earlier warning and didn't sip from his cup – although Anthony did. Well, maybe that was a pretense.

"For what purpose have we been called here, O honoured one?" Anthony asked after a moment more. Tony would have made it sarcastic; from Anthony, it was entirely sincere.

"Direct, as mortals may be," the Chief Magistrate noted. The shadows of the room grew and ebbed as she shifted her bulk in a fashion that managed – although Steve couldn't figure out _how_ – to give the impression of a shrug. Her giant head turned but slightly, until she was staring directly at Steve, instead of Anthony. Given the size of the incisors curling out over her lips, this was not reassuring. "I know which world has caused you such trouble. It is the same to which your friend was brought."

Something in his chest both eased and tightened at the words. Eased, because at last he might have the faintest idea where to look for Tony, and tightened – because surely, the information wouldn't be given for free, and he had nothing he could trade. "What do you want in return?"

Her answer was a breath – a long exhale, not a sigh, but a breath of _life_; rainbow motes of light danced within it. Heat washed over Steve's face, and for a brief moment the dragonfire curled into something that looked like a map, then swirled again into symbols like those that dotted the architecture of the Embassy. It was meaningless to Steve, but Anthony leaned forward and studied it intently, his lips moving occasionally. Steve barely dared breath for fear of making him lose his concentration, or for fear of disturbing the magical writing.

At last, Anthony sat back and nodded.

"On behalf of my people, I grant you this knowledge a gift, to demonstrate our good intentions," murmured the Magistrate with a hundred voices.

"Not that we're not grateful," Anthony said after a pause, "but a demonstration of good intentions is usually done for a purpose."

"Yes," she agreed. "And we have great need for this demonstration. A force is coming, Lord Stark, which even the gods are not equipped to overcome. It will be looking for that which you carry, Captain."

The gem felt like lead in his pocket, weighing him down. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Her chuckle was like a clamour of church-bells all ringing at once. "Of course."

"We will pass on your warning when we return it," Anthony said, guarded.

"That is not what I wish to persuade you to do," said the Magistrate. One enormous lip curled up slightly further; Steve tensed before he realized that it was meant to be a sort of smile. "And thus my display of good intentions. This enemy comes from outside of the universe; it threatens not only these Realms, but _all_ Realms with doors to the Embassy. This gem, even with its companions, will be insufficient to oppose it. Yet in the wrong hands, united with those copies of it from across other Realms, it could prove nearly as disastrous as its total loss, for _within_ the universe there are those who would use such power for selfish ends – and they would do so wrongly." She paused, although it was a moment longer before the ringing echoes of her voice died away. "Maklu is a peaceful world. No true child of this realm has taken a life in more than an age. But that does not mean we cannot oppose the enemies our enemies, more steadfastly than any save the Living Tribunal itself or that which the Tribunal serves. I ask of you to leave this gem in our safekeeping, that we may hide it where no enemy, neither within nor without, shall ever find it."

_Do not let it go. Do not trade it away. Do _not _give it to Stark._

"It's not mine," Steve said, struggling to keep his voice from being wretched. "It was just loaned to me."

"The gem belongs to no one," the Chief Magistrate said gently. "Ownership of it can neither be given, not taken; but it is the responsibility of any who know of it to see to its safe disposal. The demon Mephisto has already bargained away the knowledge that you carry it. _If_ you make it back to the Earth from which it heralds, you will find yourself under siege."

The emphasis on the _if_ made Steve tense. Perhaps Maklu was supposed to be a peaceful world, but he'd _seen_ a makluan down a fighter jet – and who knew what alien technology Fin Fang Foom might have given Borgijin?

"Damn it," Anthony muttered. "I _knew_ he wasn't feeling you up just for kicks." He ran a hand through his hair. "We could leave directly, now that I know where to go," he suggested, but there was an air of doubt to it.

"This copy cannot be taken outside of its reality," the Magistrate said firmly. "If you want the Living Tribunal's attention that would _certainly_ be a good way to get it. But I do not think you would enjoy it once you had it, and that is only if other Watchers did not stop you first." The way she emphasized the word 'Watchers' with deeper notes, laid over the word like the largest pipes of a great organ, made it sound like some sort of title – some _very significant_ title.

"It's still not mine to give away," Steve repeated – no matter how he regretted it. Or, perhaps, didn't; if the choice wasn't his, then he didn't have to figure out how much damage it could do in the wrong hands and weigh it against the alternative. Stephen had only talked about its ability to reveal souls... but it could show the truth about _Gods_, and every moment more he carried it, Steve was surer that he'd only seen the surface of its power.

"If we go to give it back to Stephen we'll be walking into a trap," Anthony said patiently – a bit _too_ patiently. Steve restrained himself from bristling. "We can't take it with us. There aren't many options here."

_You're just going to trust her word, just like that?_ Steve wanted to ask him – but not right in front of her, not when her teeth were as long as _he_ was.

"I told you earlier that magic has taught me not to believe in coincidences," Anthony continued when Steve didn't say anything. "Stephen gave you that gem for a reason. What was it?"

"To find – no," Steve cut himself off, trying to think back. Before this place, before what he'd used the gem to see... "He said... to aid me. To give me some... power... of my own."

"And has it aided you, so far?" Anthony's eyes were knowing. It had gotten him into the Embassy, but... Steve shook his head, mutely. "Then think again. What else did Stephen say?"

"That it... his mind kept returning to it," Steve said reluctantly. He could see where Anthony was going with this. "That's guesswork."

"This is an item of more power than you know, Steve," Anthony said, voice low. His eyes seemed to have darkened, from cerulean to midnight blue, and there were stars shining in the depths of them. What _was_ he? Something more than a wizard. What _was_ a Sorcerer Supreme?

Anthony shook his head and turned away, breaking the spell – if spell it had been. Somehow, Steve doubted that. It felt like something more.

"How will you protect it?" Anthony asked the Chief Magistrate.

"Ask me a second time, and I shall tell you," she replied, "but consider carefully before you do. Ignorance is a potent defense."

"Will you swear to your good intentions?"

The floor rumbled; it took Steve a moment to realize that it was due to some deep, sub-sonic hum originating from the Magistrate. "Long has it been since I was asked to swear that which should be known as a matter of course, mortal. In ancient times that would be a deadly insult. In these enlightened times, it would still be enough to bar you from our world."

"A couple days ago I saw a makluan for the first time, and he was killing people."

They both turned to look at Steve. The deep shaking stopped, which was a relief.

"This is true," the Magistrate said after another moment. "You have not cause to know the honour that a true child of Maklu tends to all their lives, nor the burdens we carry because of that honour. But you do have the means to learn, should you so wish; all souls are revealed beneath the cold light of truth that gem casts. Look upon me and judge my intentions, Captain, and know that I swear we shall keep the Soul Gem safe, that we shall oppose the Enemy until the last breath leaves our bodies."

Steve looked at her, but couldn't meet her great, cat-like eyes; he looked at Anthony, instead, who shrugged. "You already know I'm in favour of this plan, Cap."

How could he trust her so easily? Had it just been that he'd never met a makluan before – or at least, not one that did as much damage as Fin Fang Foom? That seemed hard to credence, given how much more experienced in Anthony seemed, with – well – pretty much _everything_, from aliens to gods to alternate realities. He'd implied that Dormammu was lowering himself to ally with Amora, then claimed himself capable of coming up with a strategy to defeat _Dormammu_ – when the sight of _Amora's_ soul was enough to nearly drive Steve out of his own head. But Anthony's soul had been mortal – with all the limitations thereof – so what was it? Sheer arrogance?

Was the explanation for how Anthony could consider a deal with Mephisto: deadly pride? Perhaps – but he'd seen some of what Anthony could do. He'd repelled Mephisto's spell earlier, and Amora's enchantments – they were greater in _being_, but there was no denying the Sorcerer Supreme's power.

Tony had had power, too. Would still have power, if they ever found him – although it would be much diminished. _Different_ power – the power of influence and Earthly politics, wealth and genius... but it was enough power to nearly set off WWIII.

Was it all just a matter of degree?

Steve pulled the gem from his pocket and turned it over in his hand. He didn't have any such power. He was human, plain and simple: not a genius, not even a super-soldier at the moment. He might have a God who watched out for him – _One of many_, the gem seemed to whisper, or maybe that was Anthony's presence, or maybe that was the Chief Magistrate's. Whatever it was, it was right: if faith required him to believe in Jehovah, the peer of Odin Alfodr, Zeus Olympios, Amun-Ra, all the ancient, quarrelsome deities of old religions – he did not think he could look to such a one for eternal salvation. Not anymore.

"An honourable wielder looking for honourable purposes upon an honourable soul will come to no harm," the Magistrate told him after a moment. It had the ringing sense of a promise. She inclined her head, just _so_, and –

He was, very oddly, reminded of Natasha.

She'd nodded, short and to the point, just like that. He'd not known her much at all, then – she'd been an agent of SHIELD; she'd been one of a very few to treat him like a real person, and the first person in decades to _tease_ him, gently and... friendly. And he'd trusted her, because she was honest, and because... even if Fury lied, even if SHIELD lied, and even if Natasha backed them to the hilt, he'd trusted her to do what was right.

_Once upon a time you trusted yourself,_ a quiet voice in the back of Steve's head spoke up. It sounded a lot like Bucky, although that was ridiculous. Bucky would have tossed in more curses.

He'd trusted his judgement about Natasha.

He'd _also_ trusted his judgement about Tony.

_Be honest, though – what have you really got to lose, Rogers?_ If she was lying, he'd lose his mind; if she was lying, then the directions were suspect, and he would _literally_ not make much more than a snack for her.

"Okay," he said, and closed his eyes, concentrating upon the gem in his hand. It met his fumbling attempts at reaching it quickly, smoothly – even eagerly, and his surroundings fell away.

It wasn't like before, viewing the grandness of a deity's soul, of awe-inspiring _presence_. Amora had been something of the next degree up from Hercules – but this was different. The Chief Magistrate – _Governor, Speaker, Trust-Holder, Secret Keeper, Mediator, Grand Councillor –_was entirely _about_ him: but whereas Amora's presence had been crushing, the Magistrate's was like the wooden floor; the silk screens, the air around them; her existence made these things possible, but her touch – her interference – was as light as a feather, power constrained by _TruthPromisesFaith_ –

_Faith_, he thought wonderingly, and immediately the gem looked deeper and he saw – something he could not understand – but then it changed, simplified; he could _feel_ the beneficence of her soul in her cooperation, as she formed herself into familiar shapes: one of the elderly nuns at the orphanage, his favourite one for her _kindness –_a rarer virtue to be found in the nuns than an outsider might have thought – who often shook her head over his skinned knees and elbows, blackened eyes, and brought bowls of boiling water for him to breathe over when he wheezed from the asthma and the cold, dry nights; she would cross herself, and then murmur a prayer, one hand on his forehead, smoothing his hair back.

The Magistrate was akin to a God – the Gods he had seen – and yet... she had faith, too, in peace, honour, and life; he could _feel_ her faith in the cause she served, the protection of the universe – her honest request for the gem.

_"But they answer prayers, as Gods – and yet they're so..."_ he said, and perhaps he said it to the memory of Sister Maria; sure, it was nearly as hard to get the words out as it had been back when he was having an asthma attack.

_"And so what if they do? Will you then keep all good and decent actions to yourself, to deprive them of power? Good things done in their names are still Good, and may serve a cause above and beyond them; and by doing Good, we so create that cause: it is a part of us, and beyond us, and continues no matter the limitations of any one single part."_

_Good things done in their names are still Good._

Some greater force...

He opened his eyes. The sense of being something very small, surrounded by something very vast, faded, but her words did not.

"Thank you," he said quietly, his voice rasping, and he set the gem down on the table; and the action felt _right_, in a way that nothing had since Anthony had brought him to the Embassy.

"I thank you for your faith," the Magistrate rumbled in a voice like the echoes of thunder, laid over with wind chimes. "And may faith stay with you. We shall keep this safe."

She lowered her head and breathed out over the table, over their teacups, over them where they sat. Her breath was as the fog hanging low in the mountain valleys, and for a moment he felt lightheaded; when it cleared, he found himself unexpectedly on his feet, and stumbled. The air smelled like spring, like flowers blossoming in the sun, and he nearly closed his eyes and let himself bask in it for a moment.

"Still in Maklu," Anthony announced, breaking the spell – if it _was_ a spell. Breaking Steve's distraction, at any rate. The sorcerer looked around himself. "But... at a waypoint. This will make travelling easier."

"And get us out of her hair faster," Steve said, but, absurdly, he found himself faintly smiling. Some sense of returned balance made the world seem more in tune, like they were standing perfectly poised a hair's breadth away from success.

"Scales, not hair, but – yes," Anthony agreed, sounding distracted. He raised his arms wide in a grand gesture. "_Over water, under heaven; 'twixt earth and sky: the air. Winds eight, rivers seven; roads six, gates five: take us there."_

And _there_ they were: in the ruins of Times Square.

Steve only barely recognized it: some integral part of being a New Yorker born and bred, perhaps. Rubble – glass, metal, concrete – was strewn large; they'd landed atop of one large sheet that now wobbled dangerously underfoot.

"Damn," Anthony muttered, and – flew up, to hover in the air; Steve felt a slight tug at his limbs, and then he, too, was flying. Because of _course_ Anthony had a spell for flight. Really, the only mystery was that Steve hadn't seen him use it before now.

The rubble had all been blasted in the same direction – outward, as if from a bomb. They flew higher, and the centre point immediately became higher, as soon as they got above a couple hundred feet. Of course. He should have known: Stark Tower – or what had been Stark Tower; now it was just so much more rubble. _If_ it had been Stark Tower, Steve amended mentally; perhaps it wasn't, in this world. Maybe this wasn't New York. Maybe it was some other city.

It hurt.

They'd both been glowing gold as soon as they'd arrived: Anthony's warding spells. "That's a lot of rads," he murmured now as they soared higher, surveying the city.

"The nuke didn't get diverted, in this world," Steve said dully. What had happened to this world's Tony? Or maybe they didn't have one – no, if this world was the origin of the switches, or at least on the loop where _his_ Tony had ended up, then there must have been a Tony here. Of course, the circumstances could have been wildly different – the other Steve's world had been –

"More than one nuke, I think." Anthony was staring off into the distance as though he could see over the edge of the horizon – which he probably could. "A lot more."

"We need to find him fast."

"I'm _trying_." It seemed true – the gem in his half-faceplate was glowing brightly. "There's... nothing." He sounded baffled. "There should be something. Even if he were dead – "

"He's not dead." Steve had let himself hope – dream – he was _not_ dead. He wasn't. Tony had ended up someplace else when he'd gotten switched, he must've.

"I don't think he is," Anthony said distractedly. "I'd still be able to find him if I was. No – something is blocking my scrying spells."

_Scrying spells. Farsight. _"He was working on shields," Steve realized. "They were all over the Tower – he was trying to hide from Asgard – "

"I daresay anything that could block the Eye of Agamotto could hide even from Lord Heimdall's Sight," Anthony agreed. "Well, that speaks well of where he ended up – but how to _find_ it?" He tapped one finger against the side of his chin; it made a soft _clink_ where it hit the faceplate. Did he have metal in his gloves?

"Then look for whoever did this," Steve said, sweeping out an arm not to encompass the ruin of New York, but the entire world and the worlds beyond it. "The Magistrate said they're here."

Anthony hummed, low in his throat – a sound that Steve at first took for agreement, but when he changed pitch and continued humming, Steve realized that he was actually just _humming_ – or maybe not. There was a power behind it, a sort of resonance – a spell? If spells could be cast by words, why not humming? A minute later, Anthony's eye opened, flashing triumphantly – "I have them. _Shades of the Seraphim – _"

Teleporting while flying, Steve decided, was even weirder than teleporting while standing on the ground.

But he didn't have much time to consider it, or to shove aside nausea. They emerged into open air over the ruin of a neighbourhood, as silent as New York. The trees might have seemed dead because it was winter, or because they were in a nuclear waste – the golden glow of the wards hadn't diminished – but there were certainly no people living in the houses anymore, not even any abandoned pets – unless those that there were had fled the fight going on below.

There was an Iron Man suit – or maybe a War Machine suit; it was grey rather than red and gold – lying on the ground beside one of several massive holes in the street. It was badly twisted around, and lying in a pool of blood so large that Steve would have been surprised to find its occupant was still living.

He could hear repulsors firing, below and to the side of where he and Anthony hovered, but his eyes played tricks with him; he couldn't see anyone. But the terrible green creature – not the Hulk; that was _definitely_ not the Hulk; for all that the Hulk was a monster he at least retained _some_ humanity – this was like something dead, resurrected from the grave, spine out and _bent_ in a wholly unnatural way. Whatever it was, it bounded across the street like lightning and seized – _something_, something that made a dent in the concrete when the abomination smacked it into the ground, like if Loki had turned invisible –

_"Powers of the Unseen, let them be apart!"_ Anthony cried – it sounded like a very off-the-cuff spell, but even so, it seemed to work; the green creature was sent flying backward, and a moment later, golden light washed over the street, leaving behind a man-sized outline of glowing yellow – apparently, what the thing had been beating on. Anthony made a beckoning motion with his fingers, drawing the invisible shape upward –none too soon, because the beast was already launching itself back toward it, and only a swift wall of golden light bursting into existence kept it from reaching its prey by using the creature's own speed against it, deflecting it instead of opposing it, and sending it hurtling into an empty house on the other side of the street.

_"AWAY!"_ Anthony cried, and it was like he'd managed to fit all the words of his usual teleportation spell into this one – but at a price. The world compressed sickeningly; the world rolled over, colours stretched impossibly –

Steve nearly lost his breakfast after they reappeared – but was distracted by trying to dive out of the way of a repulsor beam. The invisible person apparently wasn't grateful for the rescue. Not that his dodge was necessary (or even possible: they were still flying), since the blue-white shield that Steve had seen Anthony use before sprung up, intercepting the beam – although it made the shield's entire surface ripple.

"Something is very wrong," Anthony said; a high flush had spread across his cheek, but the rest of his visible face was pale. "The pilot of that – _debt, I call you; your life, you owe; reveal yourself, by the Powers Below!"_

A flash – not yellow, or gold, or blue-white, but dark, blood red; so dark it wasn't really a flash of light, so much as it was an ink stain blotting out part of the sky. It revealed another Iron Man suit, red and gold and black mixed in; hovering there, hands raised to fire.

"Tony, don't! We're friends!" If it was Tony – if he wasn't dead – _again_...

Anthony swept his hands in a circle, and now held them palm up, ring and middle fingers curled in, index fingers out, ring fingers touch, and cried, _"In the name of the Eternal Vishanti – cease!"_

The armour dropped away toward the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

"What did you _do?_" Steve shouted at him, but Anthony help up a hand to forestall him.

"A cease-fire – a disarmament and a sleeping spell, that's all. But something is very wrong." They floated downward – the armour floated with them – to land on the ground below: they were in an empty field, much like the one they'd wound up in the very first time Steve had gotten pulled through worlds. Steve just hoped they hadn't _actually_ jumped through worlds again. What if it wasn't Tony in there? No, it had to be Tony. "And he needs protection against radiation, although at least this isn't lethal here – " more golden spell-light spread over the still form, and then Anthony pressed something at the base of the helmet – how had he known about the release there? Did he have his own armour? Why would he _need_ his own armour? – and the helmet fell away.

Steve felt his hope dashed. It was _a_ Tony inside the armour, alright – face slack in unconsciousness – but it wasn't his Tony. This one was clean-shaven, which looked... really, really weird. Weirder than Anthony's mustache and half-faceplate (and pyjamas).

But Anthony looked between him and Steve with a smile, his eye-gem glowing brightly, and declared, "It's him. He's from your world."

From his world? Steve felt some deep worry – so deep he'd forgotten he was carrying it around – evaporate, leaving him feeling faintly light-headed. But at the same time...

"What's wrong? You said something was wrong with him." His brain wanted to point to Tony's lack of beard as the source of wrongness – okay, so that _was_ wrong, but surely it wasn't what Anthony meant.

"He's cursed." Anthony tilted his head to the side, his smile at identifying the right Tony vanishing. "Cursed twice over – but I'm not entirely sure _how_." He reached up with one hand and tapped Tony on the forehead, twice.

Instantly, brown eyes opened – brown eyes, so distinct from Anthony's blue – and Tony tried futilely to sit up, paling drastically in the attempt. "Steve," he gasped, glancing between them both, his eyes widening with anger and fear – despair – "Nononono – you _fucking bastard, _you son of a _bitch_, I'm going to gut you, _you hear me?_"

He was shouting at the sky more than he was screaming at any of them, ignoring Steve's fumbling attempts at explanation – "Tony, it's me, Steve, things are complicated but we're safe – "

"_LOKI, YOU SICK FUCK, I'M GOING TO RIP OUT YOUR SPINE AND STRANGLE YOU WITH IT!"_ Tony screamed, ignoring him, squeezing his eyes shut to avoid even _looking_ at him, and it was with a sick feeling in his stomach that Steve saw that Tony was crying, despite his closed eyes.

Loki.

Of _course_ it was Loki.

"_Dorme,_" Anthony murmured with a twitch of the fingers on his left hand – but Tony didn't fall instantly asleep. He struggled against the spell, instead, half-swearing, half-crying, until he returned to wholly disturbing stillness.

"I was mistaken," Anthony said quietly, looking down at him. "He's been cursed _once_. The other... that is a shadow on his very soul."

The sick feeling grew worse. "The gem – "

" – perhaps could have removed it, or perhaps could have crushed his soul entirely," Anthony cut him off sharply before he could get the rest of the sentence out. "Do not think it ill-used. Besides," and this with a flash of a smile, "I am not entirely without practice in this area." He pulled off his gloves, tugging on the fingertips with his teeth – which seemed somehow strange, sinister, considering how before he'd shown himself capable of conjuring or dismissing clothes at will. Maybe those had been illusion, and this was reality? That thought didn't make the action seem of any less importance.

Carefully, gently, Anthony placed his hands against the sides of Tony's head, and closed his eyes. He remained there, hunched over, motionless, for some time, while Steve bit his lip lest he ask questions that might disturb the sorcerer's concentration. If Anthony was fixing something wrong with Tony's _soul_, what would happen if he got distracted?

Steve was no longer sure that all souls would make their way to the Lord someday – certainly, according to Anthony, they didn't all go to the Lord that the nuns had always talked about – but at the same time, he had seen, beyond any shadow of a doubt – leaving no room for faith at all; what he had was pure and total knowledge – that souls existed... and they were undoubtedly important.

"Not something he has done," Anthony murmured, breaking the stillness. "Nor something done to him... although undoubtedly he carries a second, independent curse, one wrought by a most malevolent and potent power. But this is deeper... something fundamental... something seen?"

"What's it doing to him?" Tony had just been in combat – combat in which he'd had an ally killed. Upon waking he'd been confused – a flashback – but not something... soul-shattering. Or so Steve prayed.

Anthony grimaced, and held out a hand toward Steve's face. "Easier to show you," he suggested, and at Steve's hesitant nod, brushed the tips of his fingers over Steve's forehead –

_Diediediediedie_

"He's gonna kill you," Bucky whispered in Steve's ear, "he's a traitor, Steve, gonna rip your guts out – and I'll help him."

"You've been so blind," Peggy told him, and Steve knew she was right, he was about to die, she was dead because of him –

He blinked; the brush of fingers was gone; and he had to clap a hand over his mouth to avoid throwing up as sheer _relief_ cascaded through his body, replacing the absolute certainty that everyone he loved was dying, about to die, dead, and it was _all his fault_.

"Oh," Steve said when he could speak again.

"Quite," said Anthony dryly. "But not beyond fixing – not for the Sorcerer Supreme, at least." He closed his eyes, his focus once more obviously wholly on Tony, and began to chant, _"Seven winds of memory, life, and song; eleven rivers pour forth water from the well; an unseen eye watches from within the dark; the light casts blindness, shadows are unseen."_

The spell didn't rhyme, for once – which only added to the strange, jarring sense of the spell that Steve could feel emanating from the pair of them, backlash that grew as Anthony continued. _"A noisome din drowns out all cries for help; in silence all scents are as nothing, faded and gone, beyond recall. The taste of rot withers itself; all touch vanishes, nothing more reaches out. Ea grants you mercy, and washes away memory."_

For a moment, caught in the wash of the spell, Steve thought he'd gone blind, deaf, without sense. He couldn't say that everything went dark – it didn't. It just... _wasn't there_, as though he'd forgotten what dark _was_, or light, or sound, the whisper of the wind, the feeling of it against his face. There was nothing except the final words of the spell – but they were not sound, nor the memory of sound; they were, like the memory of the Chief Magistrate's soul, _knowledge_.

Sense came back to him immediately, and Steve grabbed at Anthony's arm. "What did you mean, _wash away memory?_" he demanded, suddenly feeling like he'd made a very grave mistake – meddled with forces he didn't understand.

Given them his blessing and told them to do something to his friend's mind – _no_. Anthony was _something_, but he wasn't inhuman –

"I took the memory causing this from him, and cast it into the Outer Darkness," Anthony said calmly, picking his gloves up from the ground and pulling them; he didn't bother trying to break Steve's grip. "Something a mortal wasn't meant to see – something beyond a mortal's ability to confront without fracturing. But this second curse..." he frowned, "No, with that in place his soul would not have fractured; it would have consumed itself, until he was completely insane. I dared not look at the memory of that sight myself. But without it, he'll be alright. "

This was – _not good_. "But you – we should have _asked,"_ Steve said wretchedly. 'Cast into the outer darkness' – that didn't sound like there was any possible way of getting it _back_. Anthony had just gone in and tugged out a part of Tony's mind, and Steve had _told_ him to... he was an idiot. An idiot for thinking that just because he'd started to find his feet again, just because the Chief Magistrate had pointed him in the right direction, he knew anything about anything _else_.

Anthony looked doubtful. "Steve, when he was awake I could see what he saw – and he wasn't seeing _us_. He wouldn't have believed anything we'd have said, because that memory would distort his every rational thought. You saw it – do you think he was better off with it?"

The memory of that despair, that _fear_, made Steve bow his head. But still – "We should have asked. It's his _mind_. His _memories_."

"It's his life and sanity – now saved."


	8. Chapter 8

_Remem..._

"...not waking up."

"Give him a second – hey, there we go."

Ugh. His brain-mouth filter had clearly disengaged again; he could hear himself talking, but the words coming out might as well have been from somebody else entirely. Tony hated when that happened. No point in cowering, though – he opened his eyes.

In front of him was – it had to be a mirror. But if that was the case, what in god's name was he wearing on his head? Or on the _rest_ of him? Also acting of its own volition without input from his brain, his hand flew up to feel at the side of his face – or, well, crawled up, because he was apparently in the suit, and the suit was unpowered, which, _crap_. Had the connection between to reserve arc reactor gone, or was he dying?

He was in the suit; his reflection was not. Ergo, not a reflection. What, then? If the guy was supposed to be a look-alike, he was gonna sue for defamation of image.

Nothing in his memories made sense – if they _were_ memories, and not the product of a lengthy and deeply disturbing acid trip. Had he been roofied? He hadn't _deliberately_ dropped acid since he'd turned thirty. Images of his lab, Rogers – _Steve_ – stretched out on the couch with a sketchbook in his lap; equations on computer screens, diagrams, but nothing that made sense. They didn't seem like real memories: they felt disconnected, like he was watching a movie of somebody else's life, with no idea what that person was thinking about any of it. The internal narration had been muted.

The nuke... he'd caught the nuke, and flown it upward, and then...

The maybe-memories insisted it had been months since then, but that couldn't _possibly_ be right. No matter how much shit he might have invented – and he remembered some really cool shit, although that was actually more evidence that they weren't _real _memories, because there was no way any of it should have actually _worked_.

So. Drugs? Head injury? Experimentally, he wiggled his toes – difficult, in the armour, but they were definitely _there_. His vision was clear – although it was possible he was hallucinating: he had a look-alike staring down at him, and Steve Rogers rocking the medieval look with scale mail. For some reason.

"Tony, you alright?" Rogers – no, _Steve_, if he'd been sitting on the couch in the lab, apparently by invitation –

No, that couldn't be right.

First things first.

"_What_ are you _wearing_ on your _face_?"

His look-alike – admittedly, despite the questionable beard and the downright _deplorable_ outfit, he did look _astonishingly _alike – jerked back, looking slightly offended, and then amused. "And he's fine. Told you, Cap." Damn, he really did have the voice down perfectly.

"Help me up," Tony demanded, and got his wish a moment later, Steve hauling him up and forward, so at least he wasn't flat on his back, a helpless, impeccably dressed turtle. Sadly, being at least nominally vertical shed no more light on the situation; he was left looking between Steve and his double like a bewildered fish. "Uh. I'm going to save a lot of time on detailed questions and just summarize. What the _hell_?"

"What's the last thing you remember?" Steve asked, carefully. He hadn't removed his hand from Tony's shoulder, which was... odd. Clumsily, he raised his own hand to shove Steve's away, the lack of power in the suit impeding his dexterity to a shocking degree – _lack of power in the suit – _

"Arc reactor," he demanded.

"Yours is fine," his double held up a hand. "I only shut down the suit."

"Oh, _only,_" Tony scoffed. "I reiterate, _what the hell_ – "

"Tony," Steve interrupted. He looked... pale. Pained. Was he wounded? _Yes_, said instinct – how long had they been fighting? Tony had seen the Chitauri get some hits in on him – but _no_, said months of much stranger memories; he'd just shown up. But those memories were faulty – they had to be. Some things made sense – his lab, JARVIS, the beginnings of the Mk VIII – but other things, reports, equations, and what the _hell_ had he been working on – "Please tell me what the last thing you remember is."

The Chitauri mothership exploding, its backdrop that of stars that were – _wrong_.

_Closing my eyes and dying. _

He glanced around.

Not New York. A corn field – one that matched, visually, that last weird not-memory he had – of being transported here somehow – although he hadn't the faintest idea what he'd been thinking at the time, why he'd been in the suit, why the repulsors had been firing, what he'd been _doing_. But he was _here_, so evidently the memories were at least true in part.

And, hey, if he had to be recovering from an involuntary acid trip, there were probably worse people to have looking out for you than a concerned Captain America.

"He," Tony tilted his head, with effort, at his doppelganger, "shouted something, gobble-de-gook – seriously, what _is_ that?" The gem inset into the half-faceplate kept catching his attention, far more so than the rest of the guy's getup, which was, to be fair, equally strange.

"The Eye of Agamotto," said his look-alike, faintly smiling. His actual, _visible_ eye narrowed perceptibly. "Do you know where you are?"

He sounded like a doctor asking that, Tony thought, after a long, _long_ moment where his heart seemed to freeze solid in his chest. Doctor, twenty questions, the usual game – medic, concerned friend, not an enemy. And although his brain conjured ludicrous scenarios where he might have been kidnapped to be replaced with an imposter, a) JARVIS would notice, b) Captain America wouldn't be complicit in it, and c) the guy wouldn't be wearing _that_. So. Well, as far as he could tell, he was, "In a field in the middle of – what, Iowa?" and there seemed to be no immediate battle going on, so if he wanted to figure out what was wrong with his brain, he might as well cooperate with the people who could tell him.

_(Natasha's voice: "You're in an alternate reality.")_

"...not on Earth," he amended – not managing to strip all the incredulity out of it, not by a long shot. "Uh. My Earth." Which meant that this possibly wasn't the Steve Rogers from his Earth, either, if his memories weren't complete bullshit –

"Well, at least you don't seem impaired."

- a possibility growing unfortunately less likely with every passing moment.

"Hang on a moment." He held up his hands – and abruptly, looking at the back of his gauntlets, realized that this wasn't his suit – it wasn't even the Mark VIII, or at least it wasn't like the Mark VIII from his strangely impersonal memories – but, right: other memory kicked in, not without requiring a bit of a push (Bruce, he thought, would know more about it: emotional cues for memory, yada yada) – it was some other Tony Stark's armour. Apparently that other Tony had been a bit taller. Which meant that... he looked up at his not-quite double, his mustache-wearing, blue-eyed, terrible-fashion-sense-having double. "You're not just a look-alike, are you?"

"No." His not-look-alike, his _self from an alternate reality _– Tony barely kept himself from grinning gleefully – "I'm you from an alternate universe. Tony Stark, Sorcerer Supreme of Earth, at my service."

_Aaand_ there died the glee, drowning under a wave of _what the fuck_. "Oh, boy," Tony leaned his head into his hand, "Really? _Sorcerers_, now?"

"Aliens have 'em, why not humans?" Steve asked with a shrug. He was _still_ holding onto Tony's shoulder.

"Aliens have _alien_ _tech_." Tony wrinkled his nose. "Up, up – " Steve got him on his feet – not without a bit more effort than he'd have expected from the good Captain. "And I guess you're not really the Steve Rogers from my universe either?"

"No, I am," Steve said, very earnestly. Somewhat like an over-eager puppy. Tony took a step back just to see if he would _still_ keep holding onto Tony – and he _did_. Jesus, memories – he winced, slightly, as he recalled his mouth saying words that he couldn't remember thinking with his brain, pouring out _things_ to Steve Rogers that – why would he _say_ things like that? But Steve had said similar things in return – not secrets, but not something shared with anyone other than an extremely close friend – "I came to get you back. Uh." He glanced side-long at Alternatony. "It was kinda by accident, but we got here."

"No." Tony pulled away – brushed away Steve's arm, held up both his hands. "I mean – yes, I believe you," he said impatiently, because Rogers was now looking more like a _kicked_ puppy, and even in his worst years Tony had never kicked puppies, even if he didn't exactly _like _the damned things – hair everywhere, drool everywhere, _always. Demanding. Attention_, but he'd never kicked one – "You're explaining things, starting right now." He eyed the pair of them – Steve was nervous, Alternatony was inscrutable (the ridiculous mask helped). "Why is my memory fucked?"

"You saw something not meant for mortal minds." Great. Alternatony sure had the pompousness of a stage magician down – or maybe that was just a Stark thing.

"Unlike you, Siegfried, I actually _have_ a mind, more than capable of handling - "

"It drove you insane – "

(_"Tell me about why you think you need a psychiatrist," said the man sitting opposite to him – _

Who was this guy? There was no context for the memory; no background information. Tony trawled though his lifeless memories and found more instances of the guy, and pictures of him – lots of pictures – camera footage – an entire investigation done over the Stark 4G network. Karl Lykos, psychiatrist, no, _ex-_psychiatrist –

_"I've been experiencing hallucinations. Audio-only – people I know, talking to me, or electronics – I mean, electronics I haven't designed to talk to me, stuff that shouldn't be talking."_

_"What do they say?"_

_"Paranoid shit. The occasional bloodthirsty threat, everybody's out to get you, you're gonna die – except Steve, he tells me that I'm hallucinating and should seek help – "_)

" – and to cure you, I removed the memory of it."

_Not_ a head injury.

He stumbled backward. Steve started forward, _again_ with the helping hand – Steve, standing there with a noticeable lack of condemnation; Steve had been _complicit_ in this, he had to have been, _Captain Freedom_ had gone along with _mindwiping _him – Tony shot him a look and Rogers backed off instantly.

"Put it back."

_(" – similar symptoms to paranoid schizophrenia, but Mr. Stark, you've alluded to a 'cause' several times."_

_"No. Not explaining that."_

_"If this is due to some kind of side-effect of your, uh, your work – or the arc reactor technology, which might put the public at risk – "_

_ "No. Look, Karl, just stop fishing, right now, because I am never going to tell you, I'm not giving you hints, just _forget_ about it.")_

"I can't." There was neither sympathy nor pity in Alternatony's expression. "And even if I could, it would cause you to go insane _again_ – slowly crushing your soul."

"So get rid of that instead," Tony snapped, wishing he had the gauntlets off, the _suit_ off, so he could do more than just stand there. Or, better yet, that he had the suit on, but with actual _power_ – if the AR had decoupled from the backup supply – _no_, memory showed that this suit wasn't designed to couple with his personal power supply at all. "Mystic bullshit, don't need it, sold it ages ago– "

"Humans need them to live," and, oh, great, Captain Catholic – he'd been raised by nuns, Tony had heard the story a dozen times at least – looked horrified at both the demand and the urbane tone of the rebuttal. Well, fuck _him_, he could go stick his head in a snow bank for another seventy years, he had _let Tony be mind-wiped_.

"_Fuck_ you," Tony spat, and if it was possibly the least brilliant retort he'd ever come up with, _well gee-willikins, maybe that was the brain damage_.

"Tony..."

"Even if I thought it a good idea, I'm not sure I _could_." Alternatony had remained sitting on the ground, looking completely unmoved, but now he flowed to his feet and cocked his head. The gem in his mask was shining even brighter than before. "There is a second curse upon you that I would have to break first, one that is widely anchored – _extraordinarily_ widely. I'm not entirely sure I'm capable of undoing it, and certainly it would not be easy."

"The curse on me is that a lunatic reached his hands inside my skull and fucked my brain up," Tony said, taking another step back.

Alternatony shook his head in something like exasperation. _Mild_ exasperation, which just pissed Tony off more. "You have been cursed with immortality – an unusual method of achieving that aim, but in this case, wholly suitable."

"Right, _that_ makes sense_ – _"

"The memory I stripped from you was crushing your soul," the guy continued, completely unruffled, and Tony kind of wanted to punch him in the face partly just to see if he can get a reaction, and partly just because he really wanted to _punch him in the face_. "Any ordinary mortal soul would simply fly apart under so much pressure – you should have died. But this immortality curse was wrapped through it, kept it together – albeit increasingly twisted and warped. Eventually you would have become wholly unrecognizable. I stripped your memory to save you from that state. A few weeks more, and you would have been beyond saving."

"You didn't explain that," Steve said quietly, but – oho, there was _tension_ in that stupidly square jaw, tension and something altogether like a hurt puppy – no, Tony hated dogs – a disappointed kitten, then.

"You know, you keep on going on about this mumbo-jumbo as if you think the more you talk, the more likely I am to believe you, when it _really_ doesn't work that way." Tony spread his hands, repulsors upward.

Alternatony raised an eyebrow in _amusement_, goddamn, that had not been the reaction Tony was going for. _Fuck_ this guy. "Call it advanced technology, then." And the problem was – if the bastard hadn't just fucked with Tony's memory, he would have said _cool_, he would have been all over this, he would have taken him apart and maybe tried to proposition him (he was pretty sure Pepper would understand this _one time_ – okay, maybe not. But maybe he could take him home first and ask permission, she was rather more understanding about threesomes – )

Except that there was a giant segment of his memories where he had no idea what had been going on; a giant segment where images and sound were disconnected, like somebody else had reached inside his head and put him to sleep, then used his body like a doll.

He was grateful for the sluggishness of the suit. It kept his hands from shaking.

Alternatony raised his hands, waving them back and forth as though he were trying to weave thin air. Or, hey, maybe it was _magic_. Advanced technology. _Fuck_ him. "These anchors are most troubling," he pinched his fingers as if lifting an invisible thread, "...to this world, and to other worlds... untold millions of them." His eye, which had been staring at whatever he _thought_ he was looking at, suddenly focused on Tony. "Who did this to you?"

"You thinkI know? I think _you're_ crazy, and I'm the one who just got mind-wiped." _Immortality_? What the hell? The only person he could think of was Loki, but – well, okay, this wasn't actually a scheme _too_ crazy for Loki, because Loki was pretty loony. So, Loki.

"If they were trying to get you to do... something," Steve said uncomfortably, "then... uh. Your research is – dangerous," he finished lamely.

The arc reactor? No. There was something like disapproval in Steve's expression now –

_(" – actually have _living_ subjects! The abilities developed – they're stronger, faster – "_

_" – and also now fiercely cannibalistic, Maya. No. Something's wrong with the base code. We need to move back, I'm going to take a third look at it – "_

Maya? He hadn't seen Maya in years, not since she'd been convicted of murder. Where – trying to come up with information from his memories was like trying to go through company paperwork: boring, boring, _meaningless_, letters and numbers that didn't make any sense because they were some sort of bureaucratic code that only Level 80 Lawyers (or Pepper) could fully understand.

"_I spent years perfecting that code!"_

_"And you're _not_ a programmer. It'll give you time to perfect the splicers. Relax, Maya, it's not like I'm going to pull funding. I know how damn important this is. _I_ went looking for _you_, remember?"_

_"...of course not. I'm sorry. I overreacted.")_

How the hell had he ended up in bed with Maya Hansen again? Figuratively, if not literally this time – he hoped not literally, Pepper would never forgive _that_. She'd never approved of his friendship with Maya, long before it turned out that Maya was a few screws shorter than even Tony. Possibly because Pepper was much better at people in general than he was, and that was why she was now CEO.

"It wouldn't be subtle," Alternatony murmured, squinting again. "So if you do not know, then it was part of the memory removed. I do not see any other signs of memory tampering on you."

"Loki," Tony tossed out. Oddly, Steve looked uncomfortable at the name. What _now_? "Had to be."

"Perhaps," said Alternatony doubtfully. "But I'm not sure he would be able to muster the raw power. Tying this across so many universes... what's the last thing you remember?"

"You asked that already," Tony snapped, feeling helpless – _helpless_. _Fuck_ that. He went digging through some more recent memories, trying to figure out if this suit had a spare toolkit, anything he could fiddle with, or try to at least get the chest-plate disassembled so he could jury-rig the arc reactor to it. But if there was, apparently he'd never looked at it or heard about it.

"The last thing you _remember_, not the last thing you have a memory of," Alternatony corrected.

"Give me one good reason why I should trust you," he said – knowing full well that there was _none_, even if this guy was just another version of himself that meant Tony should trust him _less_ – but as he said it he made the mistake of meeting the guy's eye, just in time for Alternatony to let two beams of light crackle between his fingers, and fuck, fucking _magic_ or alien tech or whatever the hell was going on –

_Stars_. That magnificent, velvet black landscape, the mothership hanging above the portal – magnificent and _awful_. _The stars were wrong_.

And then he'd woken up to the Hulk's roar, but that was only the memory of sound and the sky above him – no relief, no surprise, no idea what he'd been thinking. Somewhere in between those two points in time had been something that his other self had ripped out of his head.

"Those weren't stars," Anthony murmured, clapping his hands together – the crackling energy vanished. "They were something else..."

"_Fuck_ you!"

"What did you – " American Dream over there was still behind the times, looking vaguely horrified, but fuck _him_ too, fuck them both, if this was an alternate reality, well – apparently Tony had been working for the last six months on tech that _shouldn't have worked_, he'd figure out a way to get back home on his own. _Fuck_ them, they'd messed with his fucking _brain!_

"It's not about your research; it's bigger than that. That is from something outside our multiverse," Alternatony said contemplatively, as though the bastard was just thinking aloud, musing to an inattentive audience. _Fuck_ _him_. "Or, if you like, from outside our cluster – and evidently looking for a foothold...slip in among the distraction, alien invasions happen often enough..."

"What?" Steve – _Rogers_, because apparently friendship-forged-in-fire had meant something _less_ seventy years ago – let _Rogers_ ask the question, Tony was going to fix his suit and then kick both their asses into kingdom come.

"The pantheons sealing themselves off – they're preparing for siege, or perhaps a more insidious infiltration... but if whoever cursed you... those nets are wide. And they're already here." Alternatony snapped his fingers. "On the inside – behind the walls."

"He was – I mean, you were pretty paranoid about, um, Asgard," Rogers said, and Tony interrupted his examination of the slightly-too-strange armour to glare, because he wouldn't know, now would he? His own fucking _thoughts_ were a mystery to him. His company for a _screwdriver_, anything – _aha_. He managed to tuck his wrist back far enough that he could hit one of the main release catches – one that wasn't unusable from dents – and the chest plate released with a groan. Padding, more metal on the underside of the chest plate – he tore it away, pulled his shirt up, and pulled the arc reactor out. The primary cable he left in case, but the secondary – was connected to something already, a slim, grey device apparently designed to slot in behind the AR. What the hell was it? His brain showed him – _runes_, and things that _never_ should have worked –

"Oh, clever," Alternatony said, tilting his head as he observed it. "Not halfway as good as a spell, but done almost entirely with Earth _science_... pretty impressive for its limits."

"Yeah, well, I know shit-all about what it's for," Tony mumbled, trying to keep an eye on him _without_ keeping an eye on him.

(_He was speaking about it with somebody _– Steve, but wearing all black; what was up with that? – _"So'wI'yIchu!"_ – but there were other plans there, 'passive' and 'active' modes – what the hell was that supposed to mean?)

"It's a cloaking device – keeps you hidden from prying eyes, near or far."

"With really shitty physics." He flipped the AR over to peer at it from another angle. What was the risk of disconnecting it?

"With _alien_ physics, that you're cheating with by using. EMR-only, mind, because of the whole Earth-science-limitation – nothing that would hide you from their attention if you actually called one of them – even the simplest warding spell would do better. Still, very creative. You probably built it to hide yourself from – well, whoever wanted to drive you insane."

"Which you're doing a great job of at the moment." But he left it in place. He remembered building it, remembered fumbling it into place, remembered slamming the AR home – but he had no idea what he'd been thinking or feeling at the time. Triumph? Worry? Fear? Excitement at making an effectively _non-aliasing cloaking device_ – memories of watching another suit vanishing, now only identifiable by the link between the armours – who had he been working with? ...oh.

Memories of another suit lying on the ground as it flickered back into visibility, helmet tilted at an angle that likely spelled out a death certificate, a pool of blood that stamped it. Not _him_ – probably. Unless Alternatony wasn't off his rocker about immortality, but –

_(X-rays showing the hollow of the AR case _– Jesus, he must have taken out the actual Arc Reactor while taking these, what had he been _thinking_? – _with no scar tissue aside from that caused by the AR casing – and no metal shards floating near his heart. _

_O2 time-lapse readings – _if these were correct, apparently he didn't need _oxygen_ anymore – _reports on reaction to codeine: physiological and psychological effects noted_ – so not immune to everything – )

He wanted to think that maybe this was just more bullshit, but that was an impossible position to take if he ever wanted to call himself a realist again. It wasn't like much else he'd found in his memories made any more sense than what Alternatony was yakking on about.

Still, if he wasn't immune to codeine... unless it simply didn't work like that. Alien technology could warp space, minds, and bring together different realities; why not have some sort of AI advanced enough to keep situations from happening in which he could die? Probably a bad idea to test it, either way, as much as he wanted to do so. But since he didn't remember a period of realigning his spine, it probably hadn't been him in that suit. Who had he gotten killed?

"Well. I think I've learned all I can here. I'll drop you two off at home, first, and then deal with this," announced Alternatony, dusting his hands off – from _what_, Tony couldn't tell; the guy was wearing gloves and they _weren't_ dusty.

"What?" asked Rogers, clearly startled – although he didn't sound unpleased. "But the switch – whoever was behind pulling you guys out of place – "

Who had been piloting the suit? It took Tony a moment to match up audio and visual memory, past and further past – (_"It's unlikely that there will be outer-perimeter sentries, since it's a hot zone, but if there are then we – "_)

Steve. He'd gotten Steve killed. _A_ Steve.

He shot a resentful glare at this one. Why couldn't it have been _this_ one, the mind-wiping one – that had to be anti-freedom. Anti-America. Anti-American _ideal_, at least, he could think of any number of corrupt politicians and businessmen alike who'd drool over such an ability.

And it had to be done by somebody who referred to it as _magic_.

He shoved down the thought that maybe he was wishing for disproportionate revenge.

"This is more important. Myselves will just have to keep. But, you two – "

"Cast another spell on me – " oh, god, how had he just _said_ that, and it had nothing to do with flirting, " – and I will rip this out, power up the armour, and smack you into the ground. No." He climbed to his feet, stiffly, if a bit less stiff without the chest piece. "I have unfinished business here." Probably not a lie, even if he wasn't sure what that unfinished business _was_. If nothing else, he should probably figure out what he and the other Steve had been trying to do – what the other man had died for.

"I suppose you do. If you're sure..." Alternatony hesitated, and Tony almost snapped at him that _no_ he wasn't sure, because portal science wasn't much in the way of _science_ at all from what he could glean from his memories, but fuck him if he was gonna give the guy more opportunities to pull stuff out of his head.

He also ignored the little voice that said there wasn't much he could do to _stop _him.

"He's our only way home, Tony," Rogers said, and although Tony had plenty of memories of Rogers calling him by name, _no_. Fuck if Tony was going to return the favour. Rogers had lost whatever tentative claim to friendship he'd built up with a madman.

"I'm not going far," Alternatony said, white and yellow – there was no other way to describe it – _power_ beginning to collect about his hands, its flickering reflecting off of his stupid mask. "This is – as annoying as it is to admit it – a bit above my pay grade, and I still do need to figure out how to undo the loop switch. I'm just going shout in Odin's ear until he agrees to listen long enough that I can point this out. Though I could just send you home, first, Steve – he'll get sent home when the loop is broken."

"Yes, by all means, go," Tony snarked.

"I'm staying," Rogers said firmly. "An – Tony, go. But please don't take too long."

"You've warded up the ying-yang with _my_ spells, Steve, I'd have a hard time losing you," Anthony said cheerfully. "Though everyone else'd find it pretty easy. My stuff's a lot better than your little device there – magic, Earth technology, inherent superiority, etcetera." For a moment Tony thought he was just standing taller, or straighter, and then he realized that Anthony was, in fact, hovering higher and higher off the ground – because _of course_ the bastard could fly without a suit. _"Mortal coils of death and woe; wound 'round Yggdrasil's roots below; into the upper branches go; to Asgard, rise, nine trumpets blow!"_

And he... vanished.

Not without a considerable amount of flashy light, but...

_"Restarting,"_ a monotonous voice, similar to JARVIS' but about half an octave lower, announced in Tony's ear.

Tony stared at the empty air where his other, sorceric self had been. "I have... six months' worth of fucked-up memories... of _not_ being able to open a portal like that."

_(A shimmering blue fold in space – words, numbers on the screen, which looked like... coordinates? But not any type of coordinates that made sense – and a voice _he didn't recognize _said, "Test is successful."_

_"Not entirely. Take a look at the energy drain – that's way too high to remain feasible once we start crossing the ninth parallel –")_

"Six months?" Ah, there was that horror Tony had seen earlier.

"A citi-level ARs, a nuclear reactor, a Lu-Weichstein laser setup – and a bunch of negative readings." Other memories – explanations to scientists – funds transferred – orders to JARVIS – how did they all connect? He wasn't sure yet.

"Yeah, I saw that," Rogers said darkly.

"Six _months_ – and he just says some really shitty poetry, and – " he gave up trying to articulate the building frustration and waved his arm about instead – an emphatic gesture. Maybe not the most eloquent one. Screw eloquence, though, that would have meant he actually cared about _talking_ to Rogers, rather than just thin air, because screw _Rogers_.

"Well, he is a sorcerer." Spangles still sounded moody. Good for him_. _

_"Systems online,"_ said likely-not-JARVIS – memories, memories: apparently, named ULTRON, which was a really stupid name, why on earth would other-him name his kid after – oh.

Well, fuck _him_, too.

Tony bent and lifted the chest plate, sorted away the cables so they weren't stretched out, and reattached it – easily done, now that he had _power_ again. Then he flipped the faceplate down and watched the HUD light up. Rogers was outlined – curious, low-level energy signals, and Tony said, "ULTRON."

_"Mr. Stark."_ The AI sounded startled. _"Is this... Steve Rogers is dead."_ Grief, there, mostly hidden beneath reserve – but not quite. The curiosity was greater, though.

"Yeah. An alternate reality version of me popped in, was a complete dick – uh, claims to have saved me from insanity – was I insane? I mean, this is kinda... hard to remember after the fact."

_"...you were acting quite erratically,"_ ULTRON said after a moment.

_("There's no way that SHIELD is getting anything from any bug it might have."_

_"Yeah, you've got a nice set-up."_ His own voice, which then changed to a mutter: "_Shut up, I'm not listening to you – not you."_

_"Then who - ?"_

_"Nobody important."_

That exchange seemed... odd, but not that much more eccentric than normal – Tony liked eccentric, it was a great word, it gave him all sorts of free rein –

_A mirror_ – aw, and now the strange bare feeling of his face made sense. God_damn_it, why had he shaved his beard off? While talking to a mirror, apparently. Okay, that was full-on crazy. He loved his beard! It was _him_! His! Only cute little kids with Magic Markers were allowed to copy his beard!)

"Yeah, well, some of that's all me," he muttered to ULTRON. "But, nope – that's Steve Rogers from my universe, who I apparently _thought_ was a decent guy – "

(_Steve watching cartoons_ – _Tony was reclined on the same couch, but sidewise, looking at a tablet full of schematics_ – what the hell, why did he have his feet in Steve's lap?)

" – anyway, not so great," he finished bitterly.

_"I have re-established contact with base,"_ ULTRON announced. _"I cannot locate your alternate self."_

"No, he fucked off – good riddance – "

_"His help could have been of use."_

"Yeah, maybe, if he was – fuck, I don't know. Just come pick us up, will you?" He threw a glance at Rogers, who was eyeing him warily, and also standing around looking like a complete idiot – no shield, no pockets; his hands were just sort of... hovering there. Although once he felt Tony's stare, he folded his arms across his chest instead.

Yeah, Tony was _not_ carrying him back to wherever they were going. He didn't know _where_, exactly; he hadn't found those memories yet.

_"A jet is en-route." _

"Great." Tony flipped up the faceplate, and stabbed a finger in Rogers' direction. "You. Start explaining."

* * *

Tony was alive. _Alive – _and yet, not... him_. _Steve still wasn't sure he entirely believed it, not right down into his flesh and bone. Although the pissyness was beginning to convince him.

_Yeah, well, you let Anthony – you let some other version of Tony _– and knowing Tony, that probably didn't help matters – _take away his memory. Of course he's pissed at you, dummy. He's got every right, even if it was to save him. _

Knowing that didn't toss any water on the rage slow-burning in Steve's gut – rage at _all_ of them. At Tony, even if it might not be his fault – at himself, for feeling angry over _that_ – and at Anthony, for not telling him what the hell he'd been intending to do.

He couldn't shake the feeling that he'd found his best friend only to lose him all over again.

He gave Tony a brief run-down of what had happened: Anthony's explanation that somebody had caused a couple thousand – or more – Tony Starks to switch places, that Tony's replacement had used the Skynet Protocol and committed suicide, that everything had gone FUBAR in Shenzhen and the extremis enhancile had been released, with all the scientists there either dead or escaped. And then – condensing even further – that Steve himself accidentally hitched a ride with Anthony, and eventually wound up here. He skipped almost entirely over the Infinite Embassy and the gem that Stephen Strange had given him – neither was relevant. The Chief Magistrate had the gem now, anyway, and she would have given Anthony the location even without it.

"You realize you sound like you're stark raving mad, right?" Tony said when he was done, teeth flashing in a smile-that-wasn't.

"Yeah, I know," Steve sighed, and tried to stare out over the corn – _tried_, because after two seconds his gaze snapped back to Tony.

For all that he'd had days to get used to the idea...

Tony was _alive_. Not only alive, but apparently immortal, according to Anthony – although who cursed a guy with immortality? Anthony's reasoning seemed like something only a completely insane megalomaniac would consider – and yet he'd been doubtful that it was Loki. But Tony clearly didn't want to talk about it – clearly didn't even know that much about it. Still, he was alive, and Steve – didn't really want to let him out of sight again.

Mostly, Steve wanted to hug him, and then maybe punch him in the shoulder, but he was pretty sure that if he tried either he'd get a repulsor to the – well, maybe not to the face, or stomach, or, well, even a repulsor at all, but the look that Tony had shot him when he'd realized... a sock in the jaw might not be too far off.

"How – um, how much of your memory do you think you... lost?" he asked instead.

The look on Tony's face shifted immediately from 'pissed off but intrigued by inter-reality portals' to 'pissed off and incredulous'. "Jesus, Rogers, you let the bastard mind-wipe me and you don't even know how far he went?"

"I – he showed me what it was like, with that sort of thing weighing on a person – "

"So _you_ went trooping around inside my head as well?"

"No!" Steve took a breath and made himself lower his voice back to a reasonable volume. "No. He just showed me what it was _like_. I saw – " he almost stopped there, except that Tony – Tony, who hadn't trusted him for six months, Tony who might not be at fault – where did they start again, if neither of them was willing to extend an olive branch? "I saw Bucky, and Peggy," he said, and he knew from the way Tony flinched that he hadn't managed to fully hide the pain the memory brought him. "And everyone I knew – died – "

His voice cracked on the last word, and Tony flinched again.

Steve had been team-leader – as much as they were a team, and as much as they had a leader – on that day when they'd faced down Loki and the Chitauri. He'd been the one to let Tony fly up to the Tower and face Loki unarmoured – _let_ was perhaps a strong word, because it had been _Tony_, but –

He remembered those awful minutes of radio silence, after Tony had stepped out of the suit, until he'd reported that the portal had opened. Then, he'd just been thankful that Tony had somehow managed to escape unscathed, without being mind-controlled or killed. And in the six months since... five of which he'd spent in such close quarters with the man... he hadn't noticed that Loki had done something much worse. Much bigger.

"It was still my choice to make," Tony said, but at least some of the irritation on his face had faded – to something colder and more dangerous, maybe.

"I know," Steve said. "It was – I didn't realize what he was doing, until he did it."

"But you still think it was the right thing to do."

The accusation chilled him. Did he? Tony was here – here, alive, sane, not screaming about Loki...

"I don't... I didn't think you were capable of making it," Steve said slowly. "It was like... I knew I could trust _no one_. If I did, everyone I loved would die." He shook his head. "Doesn't make any sense, but I was convinced of it anyway." Quieter: "It sure would explain a lot about extremis."

The Tony that Steve had known for six months had been the one with a shadow on his soul, the one building a secret facility beneath Shenzhen and putting suicide chips into rogue scientists' heads. Without that – did he actually _know_ Tony, at all?

"Maybe, but you won't find out from me," Tony said bitterly. "It's gone."

"But – " He'd said things – he'd known things –

"Not _gone_ gone, gone like – watching a movie reel," Tony snapped. "It's like – if I _try_ I can get images, sounds – there's no context. It's like watching a movie, only – not being able to keep track of the plot. Whoever was doing whatever – "

"Like somebody else was in control," Steve said, and Tony flashed him another not-smile in confirmation.

So he really didn't remember them being friends, then. Or at least... maybe actions, but not _friendship_.

"Yeah. So, y'know. Thanks a fucking _lot_." Tony seemed to focus inward again for a second – as he'd been frequently doing since the start of the conversation – and said, "I was using medication, you know. I'm pretty sure it was actually helping. _Science_. Not some... all or nothing _spell_ out in the middle of the ass-end of nowhere."

Steve slumped a bit more – it was an impossible statement to answer; he didn't _know_, he hadn't _asked_ – and glanced out over the dead stalks of corn, all flopped over against each other. They must have been from a previous year – they looked half-decayed. But the yellow radiation ward wasn't flaring, so... why did no one farm here, anymore? Or maybe, after his previous experiences, he was thinking too negatively. Maybe it was just this area experiencing some sort of economic crisis.

On the other hand, the radiation wards had definitely been flaring when Anthony had dropped them in on Tony's fight with whatever that abomination was, and that had looked like a residential neighbourhood – and not a fake one designed for nuclear tests, either; it was too run down, had been _used_ before it had been abandoned. So maybe this wasn't a complete dystopia, but at some point, somebody here had launched a nuke at civilians.

If Tony had been on some sort of anti-depressant or anti-paranoia medication, surely SHIELD would have found it when they went through all his stuff. But maybe that had just been none of Steve's business.

He would have liked to have known anyway.

"You said you had unfinished business here," he prompted, after a minute wherein Tony pulled down his faceplate again and did his best impression of a statue – not a look that Steve ever thought he'd see on _Tony_. Even if he was talking to JARVIS, usually he'd have his hands in motion, gesturing – _something_. This was downright uncanny – he couldn't even see that Tony was breathing, not through the suit. With the faceplate closed, there wasn't any way for Steve to tell he was still alive.

_"Yeah, mostly I just said that to get that dick to leave."_ Tony's voice was metallic – robotic. But entirely different from JARVIS', still.

"He's another version of _you_, you know."

_"You say that like you think that'll convince me he's _not_ a complete asshat."_

Steve found himself smiling – _that_ was Tony all over. But then the smile faded, as he wondered what he knew about his friend that wasn't true. He'd _liked_ Tony. Maybe without the paranoia pressing down on him, Tony would be less snappish – and Lord, he _could_ be – of course, maybe with his memories all mucked up he'd never trust Steve again.

Or maybe... maybe it wasn't entirely hopeless. _"That thing we were fighting just before you two showed up – "_

"That wasn't the _Hulk_, was it?"

_"I don't think so – but I'm pretty sure it _was_ Bruce Banner. Whatever happened in this world..."_ he was silent for a second. _"Yeah, it was Banner. I guess that's what you get when you let rage eat away at your insides for too long. Isn't that a cheery thought?" _

The memory of that wasted flesh – and yet the creature was _fast_, and apparently incredibly strong, despite how painfully starved it looked – made Steve shudder.

_"Yeah. I think he killed this world's you."_

"Oh," said Steve, feeling a curious mix of relief – _not_ Rhodey, then, thank the Lord – and dissociation.

Whether he accepted Jehovah as the God of the bible or not, whether he considered that there was a greater force – a true God – somewhere out there, there was no doubt in his mind that souls were real. But there _was_ the considerable question of where they might end up after death.

_"SHIELD fucked this world over,"_ Tony said, still with curious pauses. Well, now that he had his helmet back, he was probably getting JARVIS to fill him in on events. _"Pretty sure they're the guys who caused that displacement loop, too. I _knew_ there was something wrong with the data SHIELD sent me. Smart idea – the power requirement's much lower with a loop, because each biotransfer only goes a short distance, and there's no massive debt anywhere – it's like a ripple across a pond, rather than a massive wall of water. Same total energy, but it doesn't have to be dumped in at one point..."_

Steve kept his mouth shut and nodded attentively, somewhat afraid that if he spoke, he'd break the spell of Tony speaking to him like they were back in the lab... or, on the other hand, he thought, as Tony paused again, maybe Tony was just really speaking to JARVIS and had forgotten to turn the outside speakers off.

_"But doing mass-less transfer – though, _I_ might be able to think of an alternative... once I have the readings sorted... oh."_ He paused again. _"Well, we'll do what we can. But of course mass would be easier, so if they were hard up, they'd – and that's why they're still working at it!"_ He sounded triumphant. _"Because if they switched themselves, they knew it couldn't be permanent, somebody in the chain of thousands would figure out how to undo it... we'll need to reverse it, and I'll definitely need their data for that – oh, and to work out a way to get Rogers home, too."_

_Rogers_.

"Anthony'll be able to send me home."

_"Anthony?"_ Steve got the sense that Tony was raising an eyebrow behind the mask. _"Right. Like I said – total prick."_

The distant roar of engines hit Steve's ears only a second before the jet passed over them – passed, turned in a wide circle as it slowed and came back. "This our ride?"

_"As much as I'm sure I could figure out a way to defeat SHIELD while standing in the middle of a dead cornfield, I'd prefer a lab. Even if it is in _Winnipeg_." _The distaste came through loud and clear.

Fair enough. The jet was a quinjet; it settled about twenty yards away, bobbling its wings as it landed. There was no one in the pilot's seat – was JARVIS flying it, then? Of course, if SHIELD was evil, here... but how did Tony know that? It wasn't like he'd had the best judgement when he'd shown up here. Lord, it was wonder he hadn't been killed.

"It's not your fault, you know."

_"What?"_

"Uh – the other me dying. I mean." He wanted to say this now, before they got on the jet – or at least before _he_ got on the jet. He wasn't sure Tony wouldn't choose to just fly back on his own.

_"Uh-huh."_

"I mean it." Steve rubbed at the back of his neck awkwardly. "I'm sorry. About your memories. I should have asked – I didn't realize... what he meant. If there's anything I can do to make it up to you..."

_"Uh-huh."_ Tony started clomping toward the back of the jet; the rear hatch had hissed open. He was walking stiffly, the armours movements less clean than usual – had he been injured in that fight against Banner?

"Wait," Steve said quickly, although he kept pace – the armour wasn't moving faster than a normal person could, or he wouldn't have been able to. "Please. Just – if there's anything – "

_"There isn't, unless you can calculate quantum tunnelling effects for an n-phase – "_

"Well, if you need – if there's something wrong, and you need to talk about it – "

The armour stopped. _"Rogers, are you _sure_ you're the guy from my reality?"_

"Uh – pretty sure." No beard – no, stupid thought. Anthony had been sure. "I mean. Very sure. I – we were friends, Tony."

An irritated, metallic sigh – and Tony boosted his way into the back with the repulsors, leaving Steve to scramble after him. So the repulsors didn't seem damaged – why was he bothering to fly back while inside, then? He pretty clearly didn't want to talk to Steve – unless he did? Tony could be infuriatingly roundabout, sometimes. Or at least the Tony he'd known – magically made paranoid – could have been. So probably there was a problem with the armour in _some_ way. It sure looked dented up enough.

_"Save it, Captain. ULTRON,"_ wait, ULTRON? Not JARVIS? _"Virtual worktable – yeah, like that."_

What followed made Steve wish that he had a camera. The armour sat with the arms stretched out, seated like Tony was at one of his workstations, typing – only, of course, he was just wiggling his fingers around in midair. Occasionally, robotic curses would issue from the helmet – Steve supposed that Tony must be using the HUD to simulate that he had a computer in front of him, but it sure looked _bizarre._

It was also pretty clear after about thirty seconds that whatever the soul-shadow had done to Tony, it hadn't implanted that personality trait in which he ignored absolutely all attempts to talk to him when he was in 'work' mode. Though, to be fair, Pepper had warned Steve about that one – it was only when Tony had become almost permanently in work-mode, cutting her out of _everything_, that she'd had enough.

Maybe, when they got home – oh, Lord. Home. That was an entire other mess to be dealt with. But it would have to come after Tony figured out how to get them there – or after Anthony reappeared – because no doubt if he tried to discuss it further with Tony _now,_ Tony wouldn't remember any of it once he'd snapped out of his super-focused state.

Steve sighed, and decided to talk to the plane instead. "So – your name's ULTRON?"

* * *

Tony's fingers danced over virtual keys – there were a few strange ones, different from his usual interface; he sent them to Trash and pulled up new ones, customized them. The portal data stretched in front of him, first and foremost – he'd started at the end and been frustrated: time-stamps out of date by weeks. Whatever it had been that had made him think this world's Steve was compromised (compromised by what? He remembered saying the words to ULTRON, but he couldn't think of any reason why he _would_), the unplanned disconnection meant that they'd lost the most recent, and most important, information. "Okay. So. The question is, how close is SHIELD to making an actual breakthrough? They have Bruce – who else do they have on this?"

_(A woman making small noises; when she breathed in, part of her chest moved up while the other side went down_ – flail chest, Tony diagnosed, an instant before in the memory he heard his own voice saying, sounding panicked, _"Shit, shit, shit – flail chest."_ _The HUD was present, and on it various human heat signs were running away. Overhead, lights flickered and went out. The AR remained online, and illuminated the woman with the flail chest: _Jane Foster._)_

_"Previously Dr. Foster had been assisting SHIELD, but she was killed during today's assault."_ There was no dismay in ULTRON's tone, however much dismay _Tony_ felt about it. Damn it. Those injuries – _more memories; wild flight, crashing through a wall_ – that was _his_ fault.

He'd killed her. He'd fucked up and killed an innocent woman.

_"We may therefore have won some small amount of time before SHIELD realizes its plans and can escape to ruin another world,"_ ULTRON concluded, his voice growing darker at the end.

Maybe not so innocent, then. But he didn't really know, now did he? Was she Thor's girlfriend in this world, or was she on her own against the big bad SHIELD? Not that SHIELD was so big here, apparently, but they were pretty damn bad.

"The problem is if Bruce keeps helping them," Tony said, sighing as he kept reading through the information that ULTRON had managed to pull off of the servers before Tony had – for whatever, inexplicable reason – forcibly severed the connection. So much of the information made no sense whatsoever; another chunk of it felt like if only he had a couple days to sit down and _bask_ in the math then he might understand it; but his broken memories kept on trying to interpose themselves over top, and making it all more confusing that if he'd been approaching it cold. "There's gotta be... I don't know. Bruce – in my world – he's a peaceful guy. Doesn't like making messes. He's willing to make them for a good cause, but... maybe if we talked to them."

Mind, Bruce in his world hadn't killed Steve, so... although maybe he wouldn't be in this predicament if Bruce _had_.

On the other side of the cabin, Steve was chatting with ULTRON – well, ULTRON was doing most of the talking, including a more complete history of recent events in this world than Tony had previously had the attention span to listen to. The words mostly washed over him – the data was much more important, much more interesting, and much less depressing.

_"Ah,"_ said ULTRON suddenly, and Tony disengaged from the page of calculations before him.

"What now?"

_"Security camera information,"_ ULTRON said neutrally – very carefully so. Images popped up on the HUD, overriding the virtual workstation – pieces of paper with codes viewed from cameras at awkward angles, all seemingly unrelated – red lines began to draw around them, matching them up into a semi-familiar pattern. _"They wouldn't have trusted this to any computer system."_

_ – 0tt_893&eAkA03^53i93w,3  
– 19H3*hj800a0yt39q1m120_  
...

"Passwords?" A third column started matching up, using blue lines, and then a fourth in green, and then he understood, the memory of the _form_ of a system coming back to him, even if SHIELD had done its best to disguise it – without ULTRON to pull the fragments together into that form, he probably wouldn't have recognized it, at least not so quickly. It was pretty impressive; he didn't think JARVIS could have done it that fast. More differences than just the voice, apparently – aside from the whole 'deciding to go against the flawed morality of the creator' thing going on, but that was an external situation. "Nuclear launch codes, site locations, and... targets."

_"Indeed."_ The columns were beginning to grow disturbingly long. _"It would seem that once their exit is secured, they plan to make a final sweep of this planet."_

"Yeah, well, you can stop that, right?"

A pause.

_"I'm unsure if I have sufficient resources,"_ ULTRON admitted. _"There are at least thirty-six sites here... thirty-seven... located world-wide, with systems cut off from all outside interference in order to avoid my prior searches. This is SHIELD's final weapon. If they realize we are about to disable it, no doubt they would attempt to use it while they still could – thus, we must attempt simultaneous deactivation of all sites, and there are only seventeen active armours remaining."_

"Seventeen?" Tony asked, startled. He would have thought ULTRON would fabricate more...

_"Dr. Banner makes a point of destroying them on a regular basis," _said ULTRON, sounding miffed. _"There are currently five suits engaging with the transformed Dr. Banner in an attempt to recover the suit lost at the assault site, and I have set several more en route. I do not expect all of them to survive."_

The suit lost at the launch site – with an invisibility cloak on it – well, shit, the last thing they needed was a pissed off, _invisible_ Bruce Banner. "If Bruce doesn't know about this, and we tell him, he might not agree."

_"Some of these security feeds are from his work desk,"_ ULTRON said quietly. _"It would appear he is fully complicit with their plans."_

Tony shook his head. "It doesn't make sense. Bruce doesn't trust SHIELD, SHIELD doesn't trust Bruce – and that's _before_ you add in global thermonuclear warfare and a rage complex that makes him look like the Abomination."

_"Ah."_ That tone was familiar – it was the, '_By the way, sir, a woman named Candace Ramon is on Channel 6 claiming you fathered her child and refused to pay child support,' _tone, which, by the way, absolute bullshit, the lady turned out to be a desperate nut who didn't even have a kid. Tony had ended up quietly paying for her hospitalization bills when her insurance ran out. But in any case, it was the _there is deeply unpleasant news you are unaware of_ tone, and Tony didn't like it.

He liked it even less when ULTRON continued, _"I believe you misunderstand the nature of Dr. Banner's relationship with SHIELD – or, indeed, society." _Scanned images floated up on the HUD: front page news articles, the Globe and Mail, the Times, headlines screaming about the massacre at Culver University; internal White House memos, FBI, CIA, and, of course, SHIELD. Details about provided living quarters, lab space and equipment, dating back right from the time of the accident –

"He never ran," Tony said, feeling sick.

He'd told Bruce he needed to strut. Apparently _this_ version of him had needed no such encouragement... and instead, here he was, with nuclear launch codes...

_"Dr. Banner has been a SHIELD consultant for the past nine years, inasmuch as he received whatever funding for his research he desired, to be disposed of as he wished. It was only after the Chitauri invasion, and the revelation that SHIELD had possessed the Tesseract, that he insisted he work more closely with SHIELD." _A pause. _"I had hoped that after the World Security Council and SHIELD were neutralized, he might be induced to come to the same agreement with another institution – out of my private funding, if need be. Even after the disaster... but I assess that he dislikes the disembodiment of an AI."_

A security feed, with Bruce – irises already green – crowding in on Fury, who looked cool as ice even when capitulating – but from his carefully controlled body language, he _was_ capitulating, and taking care to let Bruce know it. _"He cannot physically threaten me. At best, he can only threaten those that I care about, or those in my charge, and while such threats are hardly ineffective – and he has used them in the past as distractions – "_

Footage from some recent battle began playing: two armours (the film shot from the view of a third) attempting to contain the abomination that was ripping through a refugee camp, _Jesus Christ – _more footage: SHIELD mooks firing, only to be backhanded out of the way – and Tony knew what type of damage that much force did, knew all too well – when the Hulk came ripping through them to jump at the recording armour – and yet more, from earlier: a parody of the Hulk vs. Abomination fight in Harlem. This one was between two equally monstrous beasts, neither caring of civilian casualties.

Tony swallowed hard, trying to clear away the lump in his throat.

_"...I believe he assumes that as there is no way he can directly threaten my existence, I cannot be trusted to keep my word." _

"He jumped at the virus. Deployed it too quickly, too obviously..." If Bruce – if _Banner_ – was willing to threaten to hulk out to get his way, if he was willing to rampage – to _kill_ like that – then even if SHIELD had wanted to delay, to do things properly, they wouldn't have had much choice.

When he got back to his reality, he was never, _ever_ telling Bruce about this.

_"Yes. Although I am yet unconvinced that was his sole reason for doing so. As... self-centred as Dr. Banner may be, he remains, after all, an individual considered by my late creator to be an intellectual equal."_

"Yeah, he's got that going for him," Tony agreed. He sighed. He wanted some _coffee_, damn it. He wanted to kick back and have a proper workstation all laid out before him, with maybe a Domino's pizza off to one side – but no, he was stuck doing it the virtual way. Even worse, as the files that ULTRON had brought up winked out, the HUD briefly flickered back to show the interior of the quinjet, and Tony was reminded that he had Flag-Face over there (seriously, what had Coulson been _thinking_ – but he shoved that thought away. He was _not_ thinking about Phil) brooding on the opposite side.

What to do about _him_, then? Tony worked best alone, alien invasions of New York excepted. But this was going up against Bruce – kinda out of Captain Cancan's weight-class, no matter how high he could snap those front-kicks. Another Steve, equipped with an invisibility cloak and a full suit of armour, had already proven that.

Then again, any head-to-head confrontation with the Hulk was pretty much doomed anyway – and a Bruce with no guilt complex... god. No wonder SHIELD had let him have whatever he wanted. Tony had known that _he _was a dick in this world - more so than he'd expected – but Bruce... hard to imagine that one.

Never telling Bruce. Or anyone else. Ever. He'd just have to find some way to make Rogers keep his mouth shut – if he even had to admit what was going on to Rogers. Maybe he could snowball him, since he wasn't going to be of use in a direct confrontation...

Well, maybe if Tony figured out how to make the portal loop _actually_ work, taking advantage of the energy conservation without yanking a bunch of other Bruce Banners out of sync, he could dump this one in a reality where Earth had been swallowed by a black hole.


	9. Chapter 9

_"Stark, you hearing me? We have a missile headed straight for that city."_

Hill's voice was breathless, like she'd been running. The camera showed pavement – then more pavement – while echoing blasts and clangs threatened to drown out the words. The Iron Man suit was pinned down, and the video was all from its point of view. Behind the camera, Tony asked, _"How long?"_

_"Three minutes."_

_"Damn it. Point it at the Hulk – it might actually make him angry enough to get through that barrier. _If_ you can keep him pointed in the right direction once it hits. Stark out." _ Concrete, sky, concrete – there were too many Chitauri around Tony, ganged up on him, and Steve leaned forward in his seat – then, motion; Tony must have fired the boot thrusters, because suddenly the camera was looking down from the air, searching through the swathe of dead aliens cut by... him. Another Steve Rogers, although it _could_ have been him.

The suit dove, and a mechanical hand reached out to grab that Steve by the back of his neck, lifting him into the air and then pulling him around to press him close to the chest of the armour, before speeding up so quickly that the other Steve squeezed his eyes shut and was shouting to be heard. _"What the _hell_, Stark?"_

_"There's a nuke coming in, Cap, and I'm pretty sure my old man would dig his way out of the grave to murder me if I let you get fricasseed by the American government."_

_"A nuke – what? But this is New York! We need the Army, not a nuke! That'll kill everybody in – in – "_

_"Yup."_

_"Stark, we have to stop it – "_ he was struggling, now; the armour slowed, its flight erratic as Tony fought with him.

_"It's already done,"_ the armour said. _"You, gimme a choke point – "_ Targeting lit up on the screen, and the metal arm closed about the other Steve's neck in a choke-hold; he went limp.

The armour sped up again, and the next two minutes were nothing but blurry ground below, buildings and streets and trees – cars, and there must have been people, too, although they were high enough, going fast enough, that the camera didn't resolve them. Steve was at edge of his chair, until _finally_ – he _knew_ it was coming, but he still almost couldn't believe –

The camera flipped over again as the suit dove _down_, near to the ground, dumped a stirring Steve Rogers behind the thick concrete of an overpass shelter, and rocketed upward again – why? Recording the moment for posterity? The suit could take the radiation exposure, at least.

From up high, the camera recorded the mushroom cloud blooming over New York City.

_"Well,"_ said the Tony Stark inside the suit, _"This sucks." _

The mushroom cloud froze: the playback had stopped. Steve took a breath, and realized that he was so tense he was starting to get a cramp in his left leg; he breathed out, and forced himself to relax, to slump back into his chair.

He almost couldn't believe what he'd just watched. In his own world, he'd warned Tony that it was a one-way trip – which it _hadn't_ been, thankfully, even though it had been close enough to steal his breath away and almost let the guilt of surviving settle in his gut again. But Tony hadn't once paused to consider anything else, and to this day Steve had no idea what else they might have tried. Surely, they would have tried _something_, though, rather than just cutting and running.

_"That was, you might say, the catalyzing event,"_ ULTRON said quietly, as the forward view-screen went blank – revealing the open sky above them. Since there were no actual human pilots flying the jet, there was no need to have the HUD up – but the HUD tech did make for an unsettlingly good movie theatre.

In the back of the jet, Tony swore again absentmindedly. Steve wondered if he knew this already – or if ULTRON was explaining it to him at the same time. Or maybe Tony was swearing about whatever it was that he was working on. Steve wished Tony were just a bit more willing to talk – but of course he wasn't.

"Yeah," Steve said, and shook his head. What was he supposed to _say_ to that?

_"Your counterpart in this world agreed, and, seeing the devastation wrought by Stark weapons on American soil,"_ oh, Lord, that had been a _Stark_ designed missile? Had this Tony still been an iron monger, then? _" – other allies also came around to my side. But, alas, in the end I was too incautious, too optimistic. This time, I will show more care."_

That sounded... ominous. "This time?"

_"Perhaps you should strap in, Captain. We are about to land."_

He nearly shrugged it off – he rarely bothered with safety harnesses anymore – but the lingering fuzziness in his vision convinced him. If Anthony's wards were all that great, maybe he'd be fine in a crash even without the serum – but testing it like that would be dumb. He strapped in, and a moment later was thankful when the plane went into a sharp dive downward, sending his stomach up to the top of his throat and making him feel queasy as the ground came abruptly into view, growing rapidly nearer. He hadn't felt sharp motion that strongly since – well, since he'd gotten the serum.

The ground rushed forward: snow-covered prairie, almost indistinguishable from ice-covered glacier, and Steve closed his eyes. It wasn't the same – it wasn't the same – his fingers were locked in position, immobile, he was _not_ going to tilt it out of the dive –

_Don't you dare be late..._

The downward dive halted as sharply as it had begun, the quinjet's nose pulling up rapidly enough to induce nausea again, and Steve's eyes flew open; he looked down at his hands frantically. He wasn't holding the stick, it wasn't him – he'd _meant_ to put it in the water, he wasn't –

_"Forgive the sharp landing, please,"_ said ULTRON, sounding distracted. _"Reinforcements are required at the previous battleground. If you could please disembark quickly, it would be appreciated." _

"Yeah. Thanks, ULTRON." The name still felt weird in his mouth. The more Steve talked to ULTRON, the less similar the AI seemed to JARVIS: his voice was deeper, true, but he was also more formal in his dictation. And aside from that... 'ULTRON' just seemed like such a weird name – obviously a computer's name. JARVIS had been named after a human.

Maybe that was an unfair thought. Steve did his best to ignore it, like he was ignoring the way his hands were shaking.

Tony was already stalking out of the plane, down to the slow-covered ground below, as Steve fumbled with getting all the buckles undone. By the time he'd made it out of his seat, Tony had wrenched open the ridiculously thick steel door to the small, concrete bunker. Steve frowned at it. Something that small wouldn't contain an entire lab, unless...

More underground secret bases. Wonderful. At ULTRON's none-too-subtle cough (there wasn't really any way that a computer could be subtle about coughing), he hurried down the ramp and over through the door. The cold seemed to bite at his skin, way more than he was used to – how cold _was_ it up here? _That_ cold, or was it just that the serum was still restabilising? He'd be glad when it was finally done.

This underground base, if anything, was even larger than the one in Shenzhen had been. Well, maybe ULTRON had inherited it from the Tony that had created him. Steve just hoped that he hadn't inherited any of that Tony's _other_ tendencies – but that was also unfair.

The walk down was absurdly long, though. "ULTRON?" Steve asked tentatively, after Tony once again rebuffed him – apparently, he was still 'reviewing information'. Presumably ULTRON kept him from walking the suit into walls when they turned a corner.

_"I am afraid there is no speaker system within this section,"_ the armour answered – a different voice than from when Tony was talking from it. Steve had to suppress a flinch.

He took care to keep his tone as neutral as possible. "I'd really like to know what the plan is, here."

_"We're working on that."_ _That_ was Tony, which was... weird.

"How about an endgame, then?" This was not something he could simply let go. Besides the obvious – if they were going to be stuck here for days or weeks, then _that_ was a problem – ULTRON's last words in the jet worried him.

They were both silent – talking internally, or ignoring him? It was nearly impossible to tell. Steve decided he'd try waiting them out, first, but a full two minutes passed, and he was nearly on the verge of asking again when ULTRON finally replied, _"SHIELD has taken a great number of casualties in the current battle – many from so-called friendly fire, due to Banner's presence. Unfortunately, he has become particularly adept at destroying the armours, which is a problem inasmuch as I have no current mass-production facilities, and this latest battle, I fear, will put us greatly at a disadvantage." _

"What was the objective? Can you pull the pilots out early?"

_"You misunderstand – these are remote-controlled suits. Steve Rogers will remain the only casualty among our allies today."_ The tone of voice was familiar; he sounded very much like JARVIS had, in grief. JARVIS... Tony would have to have another backup, somewhere. If he'd been in the grip of paranoia, surely he'd have caches that he wouldn't have told anyone about? _"Unfortunately, while today's objective – of accessing SHIELD's research databases – was partially achieved, the suit Captain Rogers was wearing during the operation has been lost, and its retrieval is of paramount importance."_

_"The ICG." _Tony, again. Still weird, like he was talking to himself.

_"Correct. I am afraid, however, that Captain Rogers' suggestion of pulling out may be necessary to prevent catastrophic losses in available mobile forces." _

"What's the ICG?"

_"Invisibility cloaking generator."_ The whatever-it-was that had made Tony vanish completely, then. _"Bad idea, ULTRON."_

_"Yet necessary. Reserves must be maintained in case Banner should direct his attention to civilian populations or other vulnerable sites, or if Asgard declares war."_

"Asgard?" That was... startling.

_"Don't ask,"_ the armour's shoulders slumped as Tony spoke.

"...Okay," Steve agreed slowly. At least he wouldn't ask right _now_. Maybe later, when they were back home – and _again_, that was a whole other can of worms he didn't want to think about. "So the endgame is... what? Sign a peace treaty with Asgard and lock up Banner?" If he sounded doubtful about either of those, well, "That last one didn't go too well for Ross."

Thank heaven he was retired; he didn't have to call that loudmouthed shit-for-brains asshole by title. Especially when, by all rights, Ross should have been court-martialed years ago. And again, in this world, it was so much reversed – instead, one of Steve's close friends... what _should_ have been one his close friends... had turned out to be the monster. ULTRON had played those videos for him, too, before he'd shown him the destruction of New York. He couldn't help but wonder if SHIELD back home would have gone along in putting up with him, just to keep him happy.

At least SHIELD back home hadn't attempted nuclear genocide.

_"Lock up, not so much,"_ Tony said, as they finally reached some part of the bunker that actually looked inhabitable. Glass revealed a lab, workshop, and armoury all rolled into one; the doors swung open silently as they approached, and he and Tony clonked inside, the armour releasing as Tony walked forward to a stand. "There's no place on Earth that the Hulk couldn't break free of in time, and this one – I think he's even stronger than the one back home." He ran his hands through his hair, looking really weird without a beard.

_Forget the damn beard, Rogers,_ Steve told himself firmly.

"Steve!" That was – Pepper? Steve turned in surprise as she came running down the hall – not in heels, for perhaps the first time that he'd ever seen – and right to him, immediately giving him a hug. Steve froze. "ULTRON said that you were – oh, _thank god_."

Gingerly – carefully – he hugged her back for a moment, before gently pulling away; although it seemed like she might hang on for a moment more – were her eyes red-rimmed? Oh, god, had she and the other Steve been – _no_, no way. They were probably just very good friends – and he hadn't even realized that this world's Pepper had sided with ULTRON. Shamefully, he hadn't even thought to ask what had become of her – or anyone else. He'd just wanted to get back to his world.

It had been Tony who'd stepped forward and accepted responsibility for this place.

"I'm sorry," he said, and he meant it for far more than just the other Steve's death.

"What?" Pepper stepped backward, apparently realizing that something was amiss, if not what. She scanned him carefully. "Steve? What happened out there? I've been fielding questions from CCS all morning – ULTRON just had time to tell me that you'd been..." She bit her lip.

Steve felt like his tongue was clumsy, too thick in his mouth, and glanced at Tony for help – but Tony was staring at Pepper with a hollow expression – his best impression of a poker face, which wasn't doing much to hide the quiet devastation behind it. Oh, god. The missing memories – he must have just realized he'd broken up with Pepper. Three months ago. Steve found himself quietly hoping that ULTRON didn't stock any alcohol in this place, wherever it was.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," he said instead, falling back on army training. "It is with deep regret that I have to inform you that the Steve Rogers from your world was killed in action earlier today." The words sounded even more hollow coming out of his mouth than they'd looked on paper, when he'd had to type out death notices during the War. "I, um, I'm not from this reality." He tilted his head toward Tony, and then immediately regretted it when Pepper – blinking rapidly – looked in his direction; Tony, too, deserved some privacy at the moment. "I'm from his."

"Oh." She shrunk back, faltering – then, the CEO mask came down, and she turned it into a smooth step backwards; her expression cleared to cool neutrality, her shoulders dropped back, and she stood straighter, compensating for the loss of her six-inch heels by attitude alone. "I'm very sorry, Captain. Please excuse me."

"It's, um, it's not your fault." He still felt clumsy, and he found himself wishing that Tony would _say something_ – but he could see from the corner of his eye (was his vision improving?) that Tony was still standing stock-still, struggling to get his emotions under control half so well as Pepper had done – and failing miserably. "I'm very sorry for your loss."

He was talking about himself.

This felt very weird.

"I – " her hands fluttered a bit by her sides; stilled. The Pepper he knew would have been more emotive, less in control – but then, the Pepper he knew, he _knew_ – this one was a stranger, and was treating him as such. Perhaps one of the reasons it felt so strange. "Thank you, Captain, for letting me know. It's a loss to all of us." She looked tired, then, as she gave him an evaluating look.

Tony at last managed to turn away, and went over to one of the computers – but although the screen was changing, and Steve saw his hands tapping at the keyboard, Steve wasn't sure that Tony was actually doing anything except pretending to be busy. Steve glanced between Pepper and him, and she caught the look and tilted her head back toward the hallway – an invitation to confidence.

Steve felt anchored to the ground. The thought of turning his back on Tony – even for a moment – he shook his head in mute apology instead.

Very quietly, Pepper said, "If you weren't aware, he's been acting... strange."

So ULTRON hadn't told her?

"It's been taken care of," Steve murmured back, equally quiet.

Pepper raised one cool eyebrow, looking down her nose – and how she managed that out of heels was a trick, but she pulled it off very well; Steve felt a good foot shorter under that gaze. "If you say so." She hesitated, then, and Steve thought that she was going to ask for more information anyway – and he was glad he hadn't stepped outside, because this was Tony's to share, and even if she were Pepper, she wasn't the Pepper either of them knew and confided in –

And she'd been the personal assistant to a man who had continued to make weapons even when he found out where they were going, a man who had let a nuke drop on New York without even trying to stop it.

Maybe he had more than one good reason not to leave Tony alone.

"A lot of the local state and county councils were Steve's idea – he helped set them up, made sure they ran democratically. He's... he was a symbol to them. ULTRON's reported to me that he's lost over a dozen armours and at least one quinjet today, and we don't have those resources to spare. We can keep the news quiet, but they rely on us to do heavy-duty policing, peace-keeping. Without those armours, diplomacy is more important than ever, and without Captain Rogers to lead the way, I'm worried about the Consortium of Central States and the New Mexico council." Her mouth twisted. "They have... issues... with a woman leader. Especially one so beholden to Tony Stark, no matter what I've done since then."

"God knows you never owed me anything, Potts." Tony's voice was low; it barely carried over to where they were standing. There was a rasp to it that was painful to hear. "I can't see that going differently in this world."

Pepper smiled: cool, professional, impersonal. "Of course not, but impressions do matter, Mr. Stark. If Captain Rogers were willing to put in a few key appearances..."

Steve's immediate, first instinct was to refuse: he wasn't letting Tony out of his sight, especially not now, when he was so vulnerable. His second reaction was shame. He'd not been too proud to stand up and try to sell war bonds – heck, touring the states had actually been pretty fun, once he'd gotten used to it, and the benefit to the war effort very real, if not as important as what he ultimately ended up doing. Was this any different?

_Yes_,he answered himself a moment later – mostly by focusing his gaze on Tony's back instead of meeting Pepper's eyes. He was pretty sure that stare ought to be classified as a lethal weapon; it sure was good at killing his own objections. But these people, on these councils – with the USO, he'd been playing a part, and everybody knew it. This was different. What Pepper was asking him to do was to step forward and lie to these men and women – well, if they were distrustful of a woman, then it was probably all men – to keep the peace. A worthy goal... but the method was _wrong_.

He wasn't that Steve Rogers. He had no idea what had been going on in this world, how the hopes and dreams and fears of the population were balanced. He didn't have the right to claim he was.

Steve met Pepper's eyes, and for a moment, found himself reconsidering. If further unrest broke out... this world was already pretty badly off. Didn't he have a responsibility to them?

_Yes_.

But it wasn't one that he could fulfill by lying to them.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," he said slowly. "But I don't think it would be a good idea."

"Just being there would reassure them. Steve – " her voice wobbled only the tiniest amount at his name, " – he didn't talk much when acting as negotiator. It was more a matter of... presence. And you wouldn't necessarily have to be there in person – we can video conference." She'd caught his wish to stick by Tony, then.

Steve shook his head. "I'm not the man they've put their trust in. Trying to pretend I am would be taking advantage. It wouldn't end well."

"If it could get them to cooperate long enough to improve people's lives – " Pepper tried, but she smiled gracefully enough when Steve shook his head again.

How was the rest of the world functioning? ULTRON had shown him the map of the fallout; Europe was... _gone_, but most South American countries had survived intact, and although Africa and Asia had suffered badly, they were in states more similar to the remains of North America than to the complete ruin that was Europe. But ULTRON hadn't explained much about the governance there, and Steve wondered if this was because he simply wasn't as involved in it.

"I'm sorry. If I really thought I could help, I would. But pretty soon, Tony and I will be gone, and they'll have to deal with that then. If we can send aid, though – medical supplies – " even as he said it, his brain balked at the idea; how could they possibly send enough aid to set an entire world on its feet again? And even if they could, they wouldn't be able to fix the most basic problem of how irradiated so much of the planet was – whole cities lying dead and silent. He firmed his jaw. "We'll try our best, anyway." They owed humanity nothing less.

"Don't promise what you can't deliver, Rogers," Tony said brusquely. He was sitting, now, watching data scroll by on two enormous, transparent screens. "You want to fix this world? What about the one next door? It's got issues, too."

"If medical aid were promised, no one here would be opposed to receiving it," Pepper said tartly. "But thank you, Captain. If you should reconsider – my office is just down the hall." She pointed, and Tony took his eyes off the screen, leaning back in his chair long enough to peer down the hallway, as if he'd never thought about what else was in this underground facility except the lab. They both watched her as she left; Steve, considering, and Tony – well.

"So I guess Pepper in our world had enough of the crazy guy," Tony said when she was out of sight.

Steve sighed. "I think it was more that she never really saw you anymore."

"Funny, most people get irritated when they spend too _much_ time with me," but the rejoinder was half-hearted and more than a little pained. "You. Uh. I remember drinking a lot. And saying things, and... you were there."

Steve shrugged, and hunted down his own rolley-chair to sit in. "You needed somebody."

Tony snorted. "And that was you, rather than Pepper?"

"I could be in the lab," Steve pointed out. "She couldn't, she had SI to run. If I hadn't been..." he shrugged, halfway. If he hadn't been...

On that morning, he'd said hello to another Tony Stark, one newly arrived from another world, who'd been terrified of his own AIs. Maybe he'd been from another dystopian Earth like this one. If Steve hadn't gotten into the habit of saying hello –

He'd spent so much time wondering about why _Tony_ had killed himself, but after learning he hadn't, Steve hadn't stopped to wonder about the man who _had_. Would his presence have changed anything? Would that Tony have lived? Could they have undone the damage from the Skynet Protocol better, more easily – would they have been able to stop Shenzhen from happening?

All this time he'd been thinking that only if he'd gone _back_... but what if his presence had been the trigger in the first place?

"Uh-huh. ULTRON, I gotta say, big fan of the engine redesign – truly, a thing of beauty – "

_"Why thank you, Mr. Stark,"_ and for a moment they could almost have been back in the Tower, back two months ago, before everything had gone so sideways.

" – right, but the ship itself is a really stupid idea. Unfeasible, terrible – and this is coming from me."

_"I concede that portal technology would be an easier route, but the time delay – "_

"How long does it take him to transform?"

_"The fastest incident is recorded at 0.6 seconds."_

"Uh-huh."

"What are you planning?" Steve asked. Tony blinked at him – like he'd forgotten that he was there.

That had happened, back in the beginning, a lot, when Tony wasn't used to there being anyone in his workshop except for himself. Over time, though, Tony had at least gotten used to him.

_"There is no way on Earth to contain Dr. Banner long-term,"_ ULTRON stepped into the gap. _"However, the remaining climate is not much to his satisfaction. With the remains of SHIELD, he has been attempting to create a portal that would transport him to an alternate reality, where he could build anew."_

"Basically, he'd be doing what he'd been doing here – extracting promises of research grants in return for, y'know, not breaking New York." Tony's fingers were tapping aimlessly; he was reading even as he spoke, and he looked frustrated with it, whatever it was. "Except that for how he already broke New York here. So, yeah. Bit of a problem. Can't keep him here, can't let him go away – he's not shy about killing people, this one, and, by the way, we are _never _telling Bruce about this – "

The fierceness in Tony's voice made Steve put up his hands. "I agree."

Tony's answering look was a bit suspicious, but after a long moment he seemed sufficiently appeased. "Fine. Well. Can't cage him, can't kill him."

That last, blunt addition felt like a bucket of ice-water being dumped over his head. Bruce and Tony were friends – good friends. The Hulk was a threat, that was true, and for all that Steve thought the government should just leave Bruce alone in his own world – he was a threat that only came out when _provoked_, usually by that very same government – this Bruce was clearly, _apparently_, much less discriminating. But hearing Tony state it so casually, the way he managed to defend their Bruce one moment and then switch to the consideration of murder the next...

"ULTRON, can you give us a moment of privacy?" he asked.

There was an affronted pause. _"If you wish. I shall return my attention in ten minutes."_ At the edges of his hearing, some of the ever-present humming of machinery stopped.

"Wait, what? Rogers, what the hell?" Tony had turned fully from his work, and was now eyeing him with suspicion.

Steve wondered if he should ask Tony to double-check that ULTRON had left them alone – but even if Tony cooperated (not guaranteed) that would be rude, an outright accusation of lying. And he wasn't going to say anything that would bring down more suspicion than asking for _that_ would, anyway, so he didn't. "This is Bruce."

"Uh, false. This is _a_ Bruce. And I kinda have some memories of him slamming me into the ground like a doll before snapping not-you's neck, so, y'know, not the fun-loving physics nerd, here. Or were you asleep for that section of the in-flight entertainment?" So Tony had been keeping an eye on what Steve was watching, even while he'd been pretending to ignore him entirely – what did _that _mean?

Probably that he didn't trust Steve... which, Steve had to admit, Tony had been pretty up front about.

"Yeah, but... judge, jury, and executioner?"

"ICC got atomized by SHIELD nukes, Rogers. Who else is gonna try him? One of those squabbling state councils Pepper was talking about? Not gonna happen."

Steve shrugged. It sat... badly – there were courts for a reason – but he had to admit that Tony had a point. It was just... disquieting, seeing him sitting there discussing ways to get rid of one of his friends. As if without the last six months of memories, Tony was somebody else entirely.

"I just worry that all our information's coming from one source," he admitted quietly. Video records were all well and good, except that ULTRON could no doubt easily fake all of it.

"Two sources," Tony said, turning back to his screen. "Don't forget Pepper. And three, if you'll count my admittedly shoddy memories of accusing the Romanoff from this world of lying to me, and her completely deflecting the question." He frowned. "Or... saying that it might be Banner. Make what you want of that."

On the whole, it did sound pretty damning. And back in his own world, he'd have trusted their combined words – he'd have trusted any of Pepper's, JARVIS', or Tony's words all by themselves – without hesitation. But they weren't _in_ their home world; they were in a world where Bruce was _apparently_ completely without conscience or remorse – Bruce, a man whose word Steve _also_ would have trusted without hesitation back at home.

"SHIELD lies," Steve said unhappily. Which didn't always mean they didn't have good reason for it.

"It was the WSC that ordered that nuke," Tony said, scrolling down, and Steve looked down, away.

"Yeah, but in our world that was separate of SHIELD. You – maybe don't remember," Steve stumbled, because Tony _would_ probably remember, but only – images, he'd said. Not the reasoning. "Fury went up against them after that. You helped."

"You'll have to tell me all about it. Last thing _I_ remember thinking was that I hoped Pepper would sue the bastards for getting me killed," Tony said snidely.

Steve was taken aback. "What?"

"It was unlikely they'd ever see the inside of a prison cell. She could at least take their fortunes. Suspiciously powerful people: pretty much a guarantee of obscene wealth. I should know."

"No, not that. I thought your memories ended when you went to confront – " He hesitated.

"Loki?"

Steve winced. Then he winced again, because he felt like it should be _Tony_ doing the wincing, after all his caution, all his paranoia. And Anthony had confirmed that the cloaking device wouldn't hide him if he 'called' someone – would the wards that he'd put on Steve do better? No doubt it was the reason that Tony, when he'd been able to remember why, had been so paranoid about saying names.

On the other hand, the name had already been said. He'd just have to hope that if his suspicions were true, then Anthony's claims about his own warding spells had been equally accurate.

"Yeah, him," Steve agreed. "I thought he'd done..." he made a vague hand gesture, meant to encompass, _magic_. _Things mortal eyes shouldn't see_, maybe, although he was pretty sure to do that he ought to have borrowed one of the more obscene gestures he'd seen Clint use toward reporters. (Somehow, Clint hadn't been caught at it yet by anyone else).

"Um, no. Granted, he showed me three seconds of my life flashing before my eyes when he defenestrated me – a word that _used_ to be awesome – but, Mk VII to the rescue, day saved, etcetera." Tony snorted. "Please. Loki was crazy, and clueless, and pretty inept. I've seen worse things spring out of my own lab after an all-nighter." There was a darkness behind the sarcasm in that last sentence, not unearned. Steve was pretty sure that Tony _had_. "It was the Council that nearly got us all fucked."

"So the last thing you remember was the... nuke? The portal?" Steve asked slowly, because the answer – they'd all stood around in the kitchen debating this one, and they hadn't known what it was that Tony had seen, where he'd started getting the impossible answers necessary to make the portals work, but Tony was _right here_ and –

_Stars_. Of course; through the portal, into space. Anthony hadn't been speaking metaphorically of magic – except he'd said they _weren't_ stars. And that it was something trying to claw a foothold...

"I'm pretty sure I've said that at least three times already, is your hearing going in your old age?" Tony asked irritably, and then he tapped at some keys and suddenly the workshop was filled with a screeching noise that might, with charity, be interpreted as death metal. It certainly wasn't music.

Tony was right here, and Steve still didn't know what he'd seen. But it had been something _after_ the portal. During? Had it been the portal itself – which, after all, was made by the Cube? Or...

_Well, you've got yourself to blame for not knowing,_ he thought bitterly, because Tony's mistrust of him wasn't misplaced: Steve had let Anthony take Tony's memory. For good or for ill.

And now he had to decide if he was going to try to intervene, or just stand by and watch, as Tony did his best to wipe Bruce off the map.

There was a chime that he barely heard over the screeching as ULTRON returned – if he'd gone anywhere at all. The din momentarily quieted, until at least Steve could hear himself think. _"Ten minutes have passed,"_ ULTRON announced, not without a hint of waspishness. _"It is with regret that I can say that my forces from St. Louis are returning, _without_ the lost armour, and with several more beyond repair. However, SHIELD forces in that location are certainly reduced."_

"But Banner got away, and with a cloaking generator, right?" Tony ran his hands through his hair. "Great. Invisible Hulk, that's all we need."

"If you're not going to kill him," Steve forced the words to come out evenly, "then what are you planning to do?"

"Well, genius here wants to shoot him off on a spaceship into the sun," Tony waved a hand about in a way that might have looked cheerful, if not for the fact that it so obviously _wasn't_. "Which is a _great_ plan, except for that tiny little problem of getting the Hulk onto a spaceship moving away from Earth, which, it turns out, is not so much 'little' as it is 'absolutely _massive'_. _But_, now we have an expert in wormhole physics on the scene – "

_"An amnesiac expert."_

" – and almost all of SHIELD's data on the subject, I am proposing that we let Bruce do exactly what he wants." Tony clapped his hands together. "Go to another world. Just... not one where he can harm anybody, or one he can get back from."

_"An ideal solution, assuming that such a world can be found, that several revolutionary breakthroughs in physics make such a portal possible, and that – "_

"Banner's already working on it anyway." Tony shrugged. "Which is the entire problem."

_"It is a_ part _of the problem, Mr. Stark. It remains to be determined whether whatever apparatus he may be using could be reprogrammed. I highly doubt he would be so foolish as to leave any remote access possible." _

Tony tapped a finger against the arc reactor. "We have at least one invisibility generator. Slip in, reprogram, clap our hands and laugh when he turns it on."

_"As slipping in and out went ever-so-much as planned before." _That was... not the sarcasm that Steve was used to hearing from JARVIS; it was angrier, too bitter to let the words be said lightly.

"And before I was crazy. Now I'm just crazy awesome, so let's make this work."

...

A few hours later Steve did leave Tony alone, hoping to locate food and a washroom. Both, it seemed, were to be found only a little ways down the hall, which led past three other rooms that ULTRON identified as bedrooms, then two other doors – one of which was open far enough to reveal Pepper sitting inside, surrounded by screens of her own – before finally opening onto a kitchen area facing another of the massive steel doors like the ones at the entrance. The kitchen was spotless, and ridiculously large, with an even larger side room containing a massive store of food – more like a supermarket than a walk-in pantry.

From a security perspective – in terms of keeping radiation _out_ – it didn't make sense to have more than the one door. Steve paused, considering the forbidding _weight_ of it. Given the sheer scale of the tunnels they'd walked down, there was obviously more to this place than the few rooms here. He hadn't seen where the quinjets were housed, after all, or the majority of the armour – or even if there was anyone else living in here. But to put such massive doors between these areas and any others spoke of a massive amount of distrust.

It also seemed a really lonely way to live. He leaned in and knocked on the open door to Pepper's office. "I'm making coffee. Want some?"

She smiled at him, looking a bit distracted. "Sure, thanks. Little bit of milk, no sugar."

When he returned, he brought both mugs, coming far enough into the room to hand hers over before retreating to stare around at the room a bit more. It was... barren. There were no personal touches about it, no pictures, no obscure art – even the lab had the fish tank.

"Anything I can help you with, Captain?" Pepper asked politely, and Steve found himself wincing. His first thought had been to offer to help, but he'd already turned her down for that.

"I'm not reconsidering," he said. Better to get that clear from the outset. "But if there's something else I can help with, something under my own name... even if it's just cooking..."

"Well, god knows Stark won't," she sighed. "I've been dumping protein powder into his coffee."

If Tony was – as Anthony had claimed – _immortal_, then did he even need to eat anymore? Did he sleep? He _could_ sleep – Steve had come across Tony asleep in the lab that once... but every time Steve had brought him sandwiches because he'd missed dinner (had he ever attended a dinner long enough to actually _eat_ anything?), Tony would whine about crumbs and refuse to eat them while he was working. The plates came up empty later, so Steve had thought... but Tony never ate breakfast, either; his 'ew, solids' thing.

...He probably shouldn't speculate too much. He didn't know enough about the curse. They needed Anthony to get back – to reverse the portal difficulties, to help with the Hulk, and to explain what the heck was happening.

"Was there anything else you needed, Captain?" Pepper asked. There was something just a little bit fake about it – cheerfulness covering a genuine reserve. Startled, Steve looked at her a bit more narrowly, and saw the strain on her face – not quite so well-hidden as it would have been if she'd been wearing her usual amount of makeup. Well, the amount that the Pepper he was used to wore, anyway. This one... probably had to ration such things, after the nuclear apocalypse.

And, of course, only a few hours ago she'd gotten word that a friend had died – and now he was here, wearing that friend's face and yet refusing to be him.

He was a heel.

"No," he said, trying not to flush. "I'm sorry. I'll leave you alone."

Outside in the kitchen, as he fixed dinner – or a dinner-like meal, even if he no idea what time of day it was – he asked ULTRON, "Is there anybody else living in this place?"

_"Not at the present time."_

"Wow." Steve made a face as he dumped cans of vegetables into a pot on the stove. "Sounds lonely." Did Pepper ever get out and see actual people? She didn't _seem_ like a prisoner here, but...

_"As I am present in communications systems world-wide, I am hardly subject to loneliness." _ULTRON sounded bemused at the suggestion. _"Ms. Potts and... Captain Rogers frequently travel. The majority of this installation is factory space –a factory being built slowly, but by entirely non-human labour, thus preventing SHIELD's attempts at sabotage, which have plagued other efforts."_ Irritation slipped in; by the end, ULTRON sounded just downright annoyed.

"A factory?"

_"Order is difficult to maintain without enforcement. Although Captain Rogers had a great deal of success in dealing with local leaders, the world has nonetheless grown darker. Trust is a precious commodity. Assassination attempts against both Ms. Potts and Captain Rogers have become quite common."_

So. A weapons factory – or an Iron Man factory, maybe. But they amounted to much the same thing, if ULTRON was controlling the suits remotely. He wondered if Tony knew about this – or if Tony would care. True, he'd stopped making weapons for other people, but Steve knew that he loved and trusted JARVIS like a son. Maybe he saw it as the same thing as being Iron Man.

But Steve had a bad feeling about it. When the people doing the distrusting were the ones with all the weapons...

...that was how zombies happened.

While the pot simmered, Steve reached into a belt pocket – there were way too many pockets on this belt; it was a bit ridiculous, almost as much so as the scale mail – and pulled out the chunk of U's arm. Paranoia gone crazy – maybe, in the world where that other Tony had come from, it had been different; and maybe _that_ world had been nuked by an evil AI. But he'd still blown DUM-E and U to pieces without the slightest hesitation, when those two had _not_ been threats. Tony could have climbed over the table and effectively prevented them from getting to him or harming him in any way. JARVIS – maybe, Steve could _maybe_ see how if he thought JARVIS was a threat, acting that fast could be justified – from a man who was confused, off-balance, didn't know he wasn't in the same world –

Steve smoothed his thumb over a smudge on the metal. DUM-E and U had not been threats.

He'd told Tony about the Skynet Protocol, earlier. He hadn't told him what had happened to the backup of JARVIS, or to his other robots. It had seemed – cruel. And possibly pointless; surely, _surely_ Tony had to have further backups. He couldn't have fried everything in one go.

And there _weren't_ backups... Steve didn't want to know for sure, just yet. But wanting was just like wishing: it never got anywhere without a plan. Steve set his jaw and tucked the bit of U back into his pocket. Dinner was almost done.

Time to find out.

* * *

So.

Him and Pepper.

Pepper. And him.

Separate.

God, he wanted a drink. He wanted to get blackout drunk and pretend none of this was happening. He wanted to wake up, and she would be there, and they'd kiss – and New York wouldn't have been flattened by aliens, and he wouldn't have these memories floating around inside his skull, making him feel like nothing more than a _puppet_.

Instead, he dove into the data: both that on the screen, and the stuff he could see when he closed his eyes. The question of what to do about Banner – the question of whether ULTRON was on the level _(a red-haired woman – _Natalie, Natasha, whatever she was going by in this world – _tangled his legs with her own, and he fell; the world rolled over and went sideways)_ – were secondary concerns. Until the portal tech was figured out, they weren't going to be able to go anywhere, unless he wanted to rely on Alternatony coming back and taking them home.

Yeah. Because he was such a dependable guy.

Home.

Where there would be no Pepper. Because since four months ago – two months? He couldn't pin it down –

_("In the last five weeks we've spent no more than three minutes at a time with each other."_

_"What? We're talking right now."_

_"Tony. Nothing's been the same since New York." _

_"I know. I'm sorry. I've been busy – but this is really, _really_ important, Pep – "_

_"You need to talk to somebody about this."_

_"I need to finish this. I'm sorry. This is – it's really important. What was out there... this is probably over your security clearance."_

_"You're worrying about my _clearance_? _You?_ Tony, what – "_

_Beeping; his field of view was fixed on the computer screen in front of him. _Test complete_, a window in the lower left corner read. _

_"Sorry, I gotta go. We'll talk tonight – "_

_..._

Later, another memory: _"This isn't working.")_

- she'd moved out.

He was such an idiot.

"Hungry?" A bowl of something that smelled vaguely tomato-y was suddenly between Tony's face and the computer screen, and he startled backward before relaxing enough to reach up and take it. Rogers was leaning on the edge of the desk, with a familiarity that made Tony's skin itch; he wished the man would just go _away_.

"Not really." Tony set the bowl to one side – the way Rogers had his arms folded across his chest made it pretty clear that getting into a 'no-you-take-it' match with him would be a worthless pursuit. It was true, though – he wasn't hungry. After all, it had only been – he stole a glance at the clock and his eyes widened.

Seven hours, forty one minutes. Well. Huh.

When _was_ the last time he'd eaten?

"So that's, uh, magic for you," Tony said after a moment's pause. He should have been stiff from sitting in a chair so long with no breaks to stretch; his eyes should have felt tired – but instead he felt like he'd just sat down. That was... pretty cool, actually. No more nights of insomnia – or, well, a whole _lot_ of nights of insomnia, but without any of the drawbacks. His alternate self had called it a curse – and to be fair, he could imagine that in twenty thousand years it would be – but in the meantime... it had its advantages.

"I guess I wasn't really doing you any favours with those sandwiches," Rogers said. He looked almost – embarrassed? For what?

_("You should really get out of here more."_

_"Ah, but then I wouldn't have Captain America bringing me – is this supposed to be a BLT? You don't put cheese on a BLT, Steve.")_

How on Earth had they been friends? Sure, they'd worked together on the Helicarrier, and in New York, before the nuke sent everything pear-shaped. But they were so different – and for all that Tony had, at first, wanted to impress him, wanted to be his friend out of some misplaced sense of childish wonder – they were polar opposites. And for all that their fight might have been partly due to Loki's spear... Rogers hadn't been wrong.

_("He saved my life – god knows how many times. Got himself killed the last time. I still don't know – he was a better man. How am I supposed to live up to someone like that? It's impossible."_

_"You do six impossible things before breakfast... I thought once – I thought once that I was done. That I'd fulfilled expectations. But it's not about that. You have to keep on going, doing the right thing – and maybe you fail. But it's the attempt that matters. And you're a good man, Tony.")_

_How?_

"I wanted to apologize," Rogers said. The muscles in his arms flexed with nervous tension – visible even through the scale mail, wherever he'd picked _that_ up. "Properly."

He really did have very blue eyes, Tony thought. It was sort of hard to look away when Captain America, Steve Rogers, was in front of you and looking that earnest.

"I should've asked him what he was planning. I... let him wipe your memory, but I didn't know that was what he was gonna do," he confessed. "I'm sorry. I was scared. You'd been..." his voice was growing steadily quieter. "You'd been dead. When he said that you were – when he said he could fix it, I didn't... I just wanted you to be okay."

There was silence.

He should probably say something, Tony realized. But _god_, this was why he hated apologies – insincere ones were worthless, and the sincere ones – he had no idea what to do with them. Not that he was often in the position of receiving them, since, well, most of the time it was _him_ fucking up – that was the status quo. But here was _Captain America. _

Apologizing to _him_.

For being a dick.

"Yeah, well, curse, curses, I'm probably fine," he shrugged, the words coming out a bit too rapidly. He wanted to dive back into the data. He wanted to be – not here, not listening to this. "So, um, y'know. Apology accepted. No hard feelings." Except for what there were – but if he was going to be blaming somebody, Tony supposed it might as well be his alternate self, the guy who had _actually_ memory-wiped him. And even if a part of him still resented Rogers...

Tony did not go around kicking puppies.

Rogers smiled, a bit hesitantly, but one hundred percent genuine – and Tony tried to resent him, for being able to be _that real_, but it was a losing prospect, even before Rogers wandered over to flop down on the couch by the fish tank. The sight of him by it triggered more memories – a lot more. Though still not nearly as many memories as Tony had of screens and data – fuck, had he been _living_ in the lab for the past six months?

He needed to figure out what he'd been doing all that time... what the hell had been more important than Pepper...

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Rogers taking a deep breath, like he was working himself up to saying something important, and a feeling of revulsion welled up from his stomach. He didn't want to hear it. Didn't want to hear justification or apologies – it was done.

"So what were you always drawing?" Tony asked casually as he went back to parsing through the data, pre-empting Rogers. Some of these files, a _lot_ of them, really, were familiar: Foster's work.

Rogers – Steve, he supposed, if they were supposed to be friends – sounded embarrassed as he answered. "Oh, well... um, at first it was just things from memory. Then a lot of your robots. I think I filled an entire notebook with DUM-E and U. I tried the screens, but I never could get the colours right."

_("You pay them any more attention, they're gonna wind up spoiled,"_ _Tony's voice said. In front of him was a program – _it didn't make any sense; the calculations didn't... because it wasn't any type of conventional computing. Because what they were computing was _– for calculating nine-dimensional travel in eleven-dimensional space. His field of vision moved to another screen –_energy requirements?)

"What, no French portraits of little ol' me?" It didn't come out as snarky as he'd intended – the pieces of the schematic before him reminded him of others, things to take context cues from...

The sound of Steve's voice answering him was oddly calming... almost meditative. Numbers, diagrams, data – it was all there in his head, he just had to get it out...

At some point, he became aware that Steve's tone had changed, growing more serious, but by then the words were unimportant; his voice had faded so far into the background that it was unintelligible. The physics grew brighter and _larger_, impossibilities becoming improbabilities, and Tony was lost to everything else.


	10. Chapter 10

"What the _hell_, ULTRON," Tony swore, although he sounded more irritated than angry. "No wonder it's fucking up – these aren't results for an osmium base, this is a _tungsten_ alloy."

_"Fabrication parameters are for a 90% tungsten, 10% molybdenum mix."_

"I did _not_ enter that – that would be stupid," Tony muttered. "And if I did, why didn't you stop me?"

_"Perhaps I thought your brilliance beyond comprehension."_ ULTRON sounded rather snitty – as he had for the last day and a half. That Steve had been awake for, at least.

Steve looked up from the glass screen he'd been doodling on – a portable, interactive screen, because it turned out that there wasn't any paper at _all_ anywhere in the compound, except for that the labels wrapped around the enormous number of tinned food items in storage. "Is there a problem?"

There _was_ a problem – it had been four days, and Anthony still hadn't returned. Meanwhile, Tony was being a complete ass – Steve had tried to talk to him twice about the events back in their world in more detail, and each time Tony had tuned him out so completely that Steve might as well have been talking to himself – or to ULTRON, which he wasn't comfortable with at _all_. Getting all their information about this world's war from one person was a bad idea.

In those four days, Tony had proven that, indeed, he didn't need to sleep. Steve, on the other hand, had taken Stephen Strange's advice, and spent most of his time dozing on the couch, or doing mild exercises on the concrete floor. The long underground hallways would have provided more than enough room to run in, but he preferred to keep an eye on Tony. Taking it easy, though, had paid off; the serum hadn't completely re-normalized, yet, but he was definitely improved from half a week ago.

"Not really," Tony said, waving a hand with an air of preoccupation. "Just a set-back, since apparently at least _one_ of us is an idiot." He glared at his screen. "Right, send that back to fab, then – and make sure you don't flip 'em this time."

"Do you have time for a meal, then?" Steve asked innocently.

"Oh my god, it's like the live-in nanny incident all over," Tony threw up his hands. "Said meal had better be coffee, strong, black – "

"I _do_ know how you take it."

For a moment, Tony froze, but then he nodded. "Right, sure – " Steve picked up the thermos he'd set down by the couch a couple of hours ago and tossed it to him, " – _nanny_," Tony concluded, catching it neatly.

"I'd ask how much this'd set you back, but I'm not sure I'd understand the answer," Steve said, making a face as he settled back against the couch cushions. He hoped he didn't sound too stilted. For the first time in days, Tony was not only not looking at a screen or his work desk, but he didn't look like he desperately _wanted_ to be looking at his screen or his work desk, either, instead of talking to Steve.

If Steve started asking him questions, started trying to talk about what happened, would Tony listen this time? Building the portal home was important – and every moment that passed without Anthony's return meant that it was becoming more important – but they needed to talk about Shenzhen. Extremis couldn't be put off much longer – if Tony knew how to fix it or shut it down, it would save hundreds of thousands of lives.

"Couple days, maybe," Tony shrugged. "Osmium's tough to work with." He ran his hands through his hair, making it stick up even more. "Which is most of the point."

_"We also do not appear to have any."_

"What?" Tony frowned. "That's not – I checked before I cooked up that mix."

_"Yes,"_ said ULTRON darkly – which was, Steve found, more than a little intimidating. _"In addition, the supply of iridium due to arrive from South Africa appears to have been diverted to New Orleans."_

Steve sat up fully, setting the glass tablet aside. "By who?"

_"No one possesses the authorization to do so except myself. As the supply of osmium was located on these premises, I have already taken the precaution of closing the blast doors, but I advise you to –"_

At the very lower edge of his hearing, Steve heard a muffled – _very _muffled – noise, like shifting rock.

The lights went out, and ULTRON's voice cut off. A moment later, emergency power flickered on – and then off again, accompanied by another very faint grinding _whumph_. The only source of light was the glow of the arc reactor through the layers of Tony's shirts – now shockingly visible in the otherwise-complete darkness.

"Shit," said Tony, fumbling with his shirt. The light was covered up again, and then fully revealed – Tony had pulled his shirts off, and the exposed AR put out enough light that Steve could see the room pretty clearly as his eyes adjusted, so long as he kept them shaded from the AR's direct glare. "Well, I guess we know where the other ICG is now. Roughly speaking." He fumbled his way over to one of the suits currently under repair, while Steve found the door – not easy, among all the glass – and stuck his head out, looking down the hall. It was useless, of course – there was nothing to be seen.

"Steve? Tony?" Pepper's voice floated out from her office.

"We're okay," he called back. The hum from the lights and the electronics was gone, letting him easily hear her fumbling around in her office, even under the nearer sounds of Tony doing something to the armour. "Um, you might be safer off staying there until we can get power back online."

"Not the best idea," Tony contradicted, and Steve glanced back to see Tony pulling the arc reactor out of his chest – an action that made Steve want to lunge forward, shouting, _'No!'_, but he restrained himself. The cord was still attached. Tony popped the ICG off the base and wired in the pair of repulsor gauntlets he was wearing: gauntlets, with additional metal framing extending all the way up to his shoulders.

"Why not?" Steve asked, frowning. In the blue-white light of the arc reactor, Tony looked ashen, and Steve looked past him to the rest of the dismantled suit. The others were off – somewhere –

"Because whoever took power offline – unless it was ULTRON – compromised his code," Tony said grimly. "Probably not a lot – if they could do it that easy they wouldn't have brought _me_ in – but at least enough to confuse his memory records. It's not a smart idea to bring online the guy controlling the air, food, and water supply down here until we're sure he's not been knocked about the head."

...Great.

Steve wondered if there would be zombies waiting for him topside this time, too. Then he banished the thought, in time to see Pepper, with a flashlight, coming toward them. Of _course_ Pepper Potts would have a flashlight – she was one of the most prepared people he'd ever met, and he'd known a number.

"No suit?" she asked, sweeping the flashlight across the pair of them and looking dismayed. "And you don't have your shield, either."

What had happened to the shield in this world? Steve wondered – but now wasn't the time for that, either. "We need to find whoever it was. It can't be more than a small team."

"Probably not more than one person," Tony corrected, flexing and extending metal fingers about a two-foot-long scrap piece of metal, some other support piece – which he then passed to Steve. "The ICG's got a heftier appetite than you, Cap – it can't sustain invisibility for long. And without an AR... the power source would be too big. Minutes, maybe – just long enough to get in, maybe." His tone soured. "Though they still might have enough left to get the drop on us."

"They won't be silent," Steve said – although, even as intently as he'd been listening, he didn't hear anyone except them in the dark. He hefted the steel rod – it wasn't his shield, but at least it was _something_. He shouldn't have felt so surprised that Tony had thought of it.

"Uh-huh, because SHIELD assassins are _so_ loud." Tony stalked out into the hallway, leading the way, and Steve followed him more out of a sense of duty than because of any conscious thought. Pepper and her flashlight brought up the rear.

The air around them felt sluggish; it wasn't still, but the fans driving the interior ventilation were gone. This place was built to be a nuclear bunker – but surely if Rhodey could build a couple of CO2 scrubbers from what had been lying around the GRC, then Tony would be able to do the same – and again, _not_ a problem he needed to be worrying about right now.

He had to focus. Tony had his gauntlets, sure, but Pepper only had a flashlight (even if it was a pretty hefty flashlight) and Steve himself had only a piece of scrap metal, going up against an invisible SHIELD assassin who no doubt had _actual_ weapons.

Should he tell Pepper to lock herself in her office? But what if that was what the assassin wanted – what if he locked her in there _with_ the assassin, unknowing? ULTRON had mentioned previous attempts on her life. And the same train of logic applied to Tony – they didn't know where the assassin was, so hiding from them was... pretty much impossible.

"The main generators are in section B, and the backup generators in section D. We're in section A," Pepper informed them – although apparently Tony already knew, as he was leading the way to the blast doors by the kitchen.

"Must have planted charges, then," Tony muttered. "I'd say remote-controlled, but good luck getting anything through all this rock..."

"Could you?" Steve asked, as they stopped in front of the doors. They looked very... solid. Steve wasn't sure that he'd have had the strength to force them open even if the serum had fully returned to normal – but Tony stepper forward and shoved at something that Steve hadn't realized was a handle, pushing a large segment of metal up and to the ceiling, not without a lot of effort – effort backed up by the hydraulics in the arm-frames. So _that_ was why he hadn't just taken the repulsors. Still, the metal frames dug into his bare flesh – he was going to have a heck of a couple of bruises, later.

Steve stepped up and joined him as he pulled on a horizontal slide, the pair of them straining at it until it slid back, and then they both braced themselves and pulled. The door swung open slowly – it was about three feet thick, which wasn't as bad as the door leading from the outside into A. "I'm me, they're SHIELD," Tony said, voice straining as they pulled it open enough to step through – which, of course, Tony immediately tried. Steve pulled him back with an arm around the waist, to avoid tangling his fingers in the hydraulics of the arm frames.

"Not really the time for dance lessons," Tony drawled. His skin was hot beneath Steve's bare hand, no doubt flushed from the exertion.

Steve let him go, rolling his eyes. "I should go first."

"You don't have a light."

"I've got good eyes," he retorted, and stepped through and to the side – because although he wasn't lying, the best eyes in the world wouldn't see anything if there were no light at all, and he didn't want to block that which was coming through the gap. But Tony was close behind him anyway.

He still couldn't hear anything else in the dark.

Pepper stepped in behind them, and glancing back, Steve saw that the door was shiny-steel smooth on this side – so apparently it _was_ designed so that the occupants of A could get out if they had to, but not to allow the same thing on side B. Although if it had been so hard for Tony and himself to get it open, Steve had no idea how normal people would manage. Still, it meant that he _should_ have told Pepper – and Tony, too, if he wasn't willing to get in one of the suits – to lock themselves in her office, because the assassin probably hadn't been in there.

Probably.

His skin felt-oversensitive; the sound of the three of them breathing was too loud in his ears –

There was no possibility of zombies here, he reminded himself. If it came down to a fight, there wasn't going to be anyone attacking him against their will.

He just had to protect Tony and Pepper.

Of course, it would have helped if they hadn't been the only two light sources. But he could see the death-grip that Pepper had on the flashlight, and was loath to ask her to drop it – and there was nothing to be done about Tony, even if he would have listened. Besides – they _did_ need the light.

"This way," Pepper said, her voice hushed in the silence. She pointed her flashlight down the hall and to the right, where another hallway branched off of a T-junction. Steve took point, putting most of his concentration into his hearing – his greatest ally against both the dark, and whatever invisibility their adversary might have. Their footsteps – Pepper's, especially – were too loud in the dark, their shoes echoing off of concrete.

Down the hallway, beyond the turn, they came to another blast door – this one already open.

"Well, that's ominous," Tony breathed.

Steve motioned him to silence – although he wasn't sure Tony caught the gesture – and slipped through the gap. Beyond, the floor was grating, with a second level of grating about eight feet down, and darkness beyond that. Enormous pipes were _everywhere_, and as Pepper stepped through and shone her flashlight over the setup, Steve realized that the centre piece was an arc reactor: a _massive_ arc reactor, easily ten feet across. It had the same circular design as the small versions, and when he boosted himself up using the pipes to get to the elevated walkway that toured the edge of the room, he could see that it, too, had spokes radiating outward from the centre.

Every movement made the grating hum, setting all his senses on edge. Tony climbed up directly onto the reactor and looked down into it by the light of his much smaller reactor. "No sabotage from this side," he reported.

"Over here," Pepper said, and Tony dropped back onto the main level. Steve flinched. "Something took out the entire control setup..."

They were two spots of light in the darkness. Steve edged sideways along the walkway.

He could hear a fourth person breathing, near-silently. Completely silent, to anyone but him – but when he held his own breath and tried to listen, the sounds were too confused. There was too much metal and smooth concrete in here, but they were moving... he glanced back down, and realized that it wasn't just the unseen assassin. In concentrating so much on _them,_ he'd briefly lost track of Tony and Pepper, and now they were both around far side of the reactor.

Out of his immediate reach.

To call out, or not to call out? Three people breathing, other than him – all on the far side. _Hell._ He'd screwed this up. Carefully, desperately quiet, he swung himself back down to the main level of the grating – the upper walkway ended too soon; it wouldn't take him near enough – and at the same moment as his feet hit the lower grating, he heard a scream from Pepper and a dull _clang_. He darted around the reactor and saw two forms engaged in a struggle – Tony was slumped over on the grating, face down, AR shining through the grating to below, where the flashlight had fallen over the guard-rail – one of the forms, the smaller one, had the taller one in a choke-hold in the next instant.

Steve recognized that willowy shape, that lethal, graceful form. He'd sparred with her often.

"Natasha," he said softly. It echoed about the room, a sibilant _sss_ among the pipes.

"Another of you? You should have stayed on your own world." Her voice was casual, but her breathing was quick, strained – he barely managed to make out her free arm moving down to her side, but the sound of a safety clicking free as she talked – _that_ he heard.

Two bullets flew past him, not a moment after he'd dived back around the reactor, hands over his ears – he had to preserve his hearing. He _had_ to preserve it – it was his only advantage against Natasha, who could stand her ground against him even when he had the serum at full strength, who was at home in the darkness.

But she'd have destroyed her own hearing with that move. He half-jumped, half-pulled himself up to the top of the reactor, letting the glow from beneath it backlight the scene for him; two forms struggling, until one smashed the other across the face, sending her down to the floor.

Steve threw the steel rod, half-strength, and jumped without looking to see if it hit its target. No bullets followed him, though, just a curse and the sound of the bar clattering off of metal grating, and something else metal – Natasha's gun – falling down to the next level. He rounded the corner to see her lithe form flipping over the guard-rail and down after it, and without thought grabbed at a limb. It felt like an arm, a wrist, tendons standing out beneath her thin jumpsuit. Half-seen motion in the dark: she leveraged her legs against the rail and pulled him down against it with an arm-bar – but two could play at the game of flexibility; Steve loosened his muscles and allowed himself to flip over and downward, landing before she did.

The light of Tony's AR glinted off of the grating and conspicuously _didn't_ off of the dulled form of the gun. He kicked it away and it skittered off into the dark – clacking noises providing evidence that it had dropped another level, this time to concrete. He let himself fall back into fighting stance, then... but above him, she wasn't following.

And as he squinted up, he realized that she wasn't _above_ him, either.

_Great_. The door was open – if she wanted out, into the rest of the place... how would they ever find her?

He held his breath. Two people breathing, above him – Pepper was beginning to stir, already, but Tony was out cold. Steve couldn't look at him to check if he was okay, though; the AR was too bright. It'd kill his night-vision.

Higher, but off to the right, there was one other person in the room breathing. Not going after the gun, not going for the door... what was she doing?

She wanted something in this room. With a rush of fear, Steve realized that it was probably either Tony or Pepper. She hadn't outright killed either of them, though – so what was she up to?

"In my world, we're on the same side," Steve called out carefully, picking his way around the lower grating. His voice echoed off _everything – _too loud, way too loud. But being quieter would only make it easier for Natasha to pinpoint his location, if she hadn't already. He moved further into the darkness, going slowly, moving by feel and his memory of how it had looked when Pepper had shone her flashlight around it.

He needed to get further up; all the light was pointing below. Grabbing a pipe, he boosted himself back up to the main level – and heard Natasha moving closer, closer – he barely blocked a kicked to the face, skittered backward across the grating, trying to lure her toward the light, moving more by sound than anything else. Strike to the head, gut, upper right, upper right, lower left, low kick – in the dark he didn't manage to catch more than half of them. He didn't even bother trying to stop the hits to his body – the scale mail would protect him there – and just focused on protecting his head. Hard enough; but when he returned with attacks of his own he was countered effortlessly, easy. Had she practiced blindfighting?

Knowing Natasha, the answer was probably yes. If he hadn't been wearing reinforced scale mail, he'd have been on his knees, retching – she hit _hard._ There was also the fact that, serum discounted, she was just plain _better_ at close-quarters fighting than he was.

"I'm not your enemy," he panted, smacking aside another strike just before it could crush his nose, and jumped up, grabbing onto the guard-rail and hauling himself up to the catwalk. Natasha didn't miss a beat; she leapt after him and he had to let go with one hand before she smashed it – he only barely managed to flip himself over the rail with a grunt for the effort, and then it was right into her attack, a boot directly to his gut. She'd managed to get ahead of him.

He stumbled, taking advantage of his longer stride, shook his head, and launched a counter-assault, driving her back – she turned aside every blow, but he had strength and stamina over her, even if the latter was only by a little at present. In a long fight, he'd come out the victor. Probably. But neither was Natasha stupid, either; she snarled at him, "You side with ULTRON," and vaulted over the railing, landing with knees bent – the form of her legs backlit for one brief moment – and heading straight for Pepper, who was picking herself up off the floor. Pepper and Tony.

As soon as she'd leapt, he'd kicked his own feet up and over, landing behind her – now he threw himself at her, catching her in a tackle, even as part of his brain screamed, _Bad move!_ She went down, but it was a controlled fall; he tried rolling over her, tried to put himself between her and his downed friends, but she caught his arm and then his neck with his legs, rolling over – and he couldn't breathe. He barely managed to keep her from cracking his head against the grating – that would have put him completely out of the fight. Instead he scrabbled at her with his free arm, clawing at her jumpsuit – she was wearing some sort of harness, straps all over the place, and he used it to pull her in, but he _couldn't breathe_ –

He had more mass, though.

Steve braced his legs against the reactor and shoved back and down, forcing her to break her grip and roll free, or break her back – leaving him free to draw in great, gasping breaths of air as they separated, both rolling to their feet. She had the advantage, now – he was between her and the others, but that meant that he was closer to the light.

He was still trying to catch his breath when she vanished into the shadows again.

"Why are you doing this, Natasha? You're a good person. Why would you keep working for them?" he rasped out. Behind him, Pepper was moving, doing something – but he couldn't afford to pay much attention to her, instead trying to track Natasha's breathing through the darkness – hard to do, when he was gasping like a fish out of water.

ULTRON was offline... and Natasha was trying to kill him. Maybe not the best time to be asking for the other side of the story, but it wasn't like he was going to get another chance.

"Why wouldn't I?" her voice floated down out of the darkness – from the wrong direction. She was throwing it, letting it echo across, but her breathing – of which she was not so careful – gave her away. He clambered up onto the arc reactor again, taking the central high point – as much of an advantage as he was going to get, unless she managed to find the gun – but she wasn't heading toward the lower levels, not yet. Twenty feet to his right, up on the catwalk... what was she planning? "Tell me what else there is. ULTRON's hunted SHIELD down like rats. Anyone who scurries out of the rat-hole dies."

"They don't deserve your protection." She was moving down again – her breathing near-silenced. Down onto the main level... and below. _Damn_. He slid down off of the reactor, on the opposite side from Tony and Pepper – Pepper was rolling him over; the light from his arc reactor was moving, flashing up high at the ceiling. Below, the flashlight still cast a beam through the dark, but it was pointed away. He flipped himself over the inner guard-rail, onto the lowest grating, where the flashlight lay. The gun was somewhere on the concrete floor below – but Natasha was on this side, coming around and - !

He twisted out of her grab before she could complete it, and tried to elbow her in the gut but got only air; she slipped away and a boot kicked in his knee from behind, numbing his right leg down to his toes. Above, the light bobbed, moving away – had Pepper taken the arc reactor _out _of Tony? What the – there was no time to wonder about Pepper. He spun, balanced on one foot – a terrible position; Natasha followed it up with a takedown that had him winded, and he barely caught her foot before it would have landed on his throat with enough force to kill – caught, twisted, and rather than have her ankle broken she flipped herself with it, getting tangled in the iron guardrail while he rolled free and up. His right leg was all pins and needles – she disengaged, flipping herself back up over the guardrail.

Steve followed, on the opposite side – she wasn't going after Pepper, though; she was going for Tony. Already the light of the AR was gone, disappeared – he hoped to God, a being higher than Jehovah, that she wasn't about to betray them –

"I could promise you amnesty. You know what they're planning – you could help us stop them," he tried, grunting on the last word as he hauled himself back up to the main level – and nearly tripped over something with give: Tony.

Why hadn't he woken up by now? How hard had she _hit_ him?

_Immortality curse,_ Steve reminded himself. Tony would be fine. He was still breathing – even if it was rather shallow. He'd be fine. He'd have to be.

"ULTRON won't stop until we're all dead. It will _never_ let us go."

Throwing her voice again – where had she – _there. _Natasha had crept with cat-like grace onto the top of the big reactor, and Steve braced himself while trying to make it look like he wasn't. She was going to tackle him from above, with the advantage of having him out-lined by the light – but if he could catch her –

Nope.

She was invisible above him in the darkness; he threw himself backward and a boot whistled past his face. He caught it at chest-level, but she flipped down, braced on _something_ – grating, reactor piping, he didn't know – and the world went _over_ as she tumbled them both – and this time he wasn't so fortunate as to avoid the blow to his skull. She managed to connect again with the same knee she'd kicked in before as they grappled, turning it numb again, useless – he shoved them both out and away, to the side, and they fell off the outside of the grating, the guard-rail not low enough to stop them – fell, scraped up against the outer concrete wall, fell straight past the lower level, and down onto the concrete floor, landing sideways.

Natasha rolled away, and for a moment they both lay there, half-stunned, faintly illuminated by the edges of the flashlight beam above. Then sense returned, and they were both on their feet again, circling – they'd gotten turned about, and the flashlight had rolled somewhat, but the gun was... where?

"I'm not asking you to trust ULTRON, Natasha, I'm asking you to trust _me_," Steve pleaded.

She laughed, low and harsh. "Trust you? _You?_ _Bozhe moi,_ you, Captain America? Defender of Justice? Since when have _you_ had any forgiveness for those who have erred? Since when do _you_ trust those too stupid to see the light?"

The emergency lights kicked on.

Natasha dove sideways, toward a small black object on the ground – her gun.

Steve dove for Natasha.

They reached the same point at the same time; her hand got around the grip, and he slammed her arm to the concrete, but she let go right before impact – using her legs to throw them over and snatching the gun up with her other arm while getting a knee into his throat. He scrabbled for air, grabbed at her hair and yanked her down, forward, while he bucked his hips enough to toss her off-balance – they rolled, again, but she had the gun, fired – it caught him in the shoulder, at close enough range that his arm instantly went numb. Had it gotten through the borrowed suit? Scale mail wasn't designed to stand up to firearms, but there was lining under – was it bullet-proof? Steve had no idea. He couldn't feel his arm – his right leg was pins and needles and fire –

"You want a world – to run to?" he grunted, putting all his effort into keeping her hand pinned to the floor, unable to shoot him a second time. She took advantage of the distraction and they went twisting over again, her knee into the side of his head, his head into the concrete floor – and she was up and standing ten feet away. Maybe twelve feet. For a moment, his vision was a bit wobbly. Concussion, he thought.

Steve lay on the ground and breathed.

"You have no idea what I want," she said coldly.

_Tony_, he thought – she was after Tony. Tony, who was defenceless. Pepper had gone with the arc reactor – to get power back online, apparently. Which meant ULTRON would be coming, with a suit, just as soon as one had a reactor hooked up – if there were any functional armours on the premises, if they weren't all out peacekeeping.

Or hunting down SHIELD.

"Did you agree to nuke New York?" he asked. She hadn't moved.

"It doesn't matter." Her voice sounded dead.

"It wasn't you, 'Tasha."

She was there, suddenly: a boot caught his side. Through the scale mail – there had to be something else to it; that or he was bleeding out and just didn't know it – it didn't hurt as much as his head did. "Don't call me that."

"It wasn't you," he coughed, beginning to get his wind back – though his head was still spinning. Definitely a concussion. He missed the serum. "It wasn't you. You can come with us – help us stop them, and you can come with us. Help us stop the Council on _our_ end. Fury's been waging war on them..."

She hadn't moved – hadn't gone after Tony, hadn't killed him yet.

"You already have a Black Widow."

"So you can be twins," he said, and found himself grinning. He could blame it on the head injury. "Clint'd love that."

She didn't say anything. Was that good or bad?

He had to keep trying.

"Please. You're better than this. You didn't kill Pepper." And she could have – it probably would have been easier for her, but she hadn't. She hadn't killed Pepper, and she wasn't putting a bullet in his brain right now, when he was down and vulnerable. "You know if you help SHIELD leave they're gonna use all the nukes they got left. You can stop 'em. You."

There was a roar, and then a grinding of metal – and an armour came roaring into the chamber overhead. It cut power and dropped, pulling the grating down on top of their heads, ripping bolts out of concrete; Steve flinched back, trying to cover his head, and felt a hand on his arm pulling him to his feet and away to the far wall, where they were protected by the bulk of the reactor between them and the destroyed grating. He staggered, got his bearings, and shoved her behind him.

The suit had no arms – which looked pretty ridiculous – but that didn't mean much when it had those shoulder pauldrons opened. Steve had seen what the various tricks kept in there could do – he only hoped that Natasha had the sense to hide her head entirely.

"Wait!" he shouted.

There was a pause. _"That is the Black Widow, an Agent of SHIELD,"_ ULTRON said from the suit's speakers.

"And she's not our enemy," Steve said firmly. Then it occurred to him to try to look over his shoulder – an action he immediately regretted. Had it really been so long since the last time he'd had a head injury that the serum couldn't take care of, that he'd forgotten that sudden movements were nobody's friend? "Uh. I mean. Natasha, do you surrender?"

"I'm here on Dr. Banner's orders," she said quietly. "Do you think there's any hole I could hide in that wouldn't crack beneath his rage? He hasn't come for you here only because you'd just flee again to other servers – but for a traitor, he might." He felt her shiver, very slightly. "He's never liked me."

"So... you surrender, right?"

She snorted. "Sure."

Steve felt his mouth quirk up, somewhere beneath the mass of pain that was currently his face. "Then I think we have a solution." He turned his head back to the armour – remembering to move it slowly, this time. "You remember that problem you and Tony had? She could solve it."

_"She is complicit in the deaths of over four billion of her fellow humans, Captain Rogers."_

That... hurt. It didn't mean that what he'd seen in Natasha's eyes was false, though. "It wasn't her giving orders _or_ pushing buttons. Stand down."

Instead, the lights of the suit brightened; the pauldrons stood primed. _"You are giving orders to _me?_"_

Glitches in the programming, Tony had said. Might not be wise to put him online, Tony had said. Steve raised his hands, trying for conciliatory.

"No, I'm not. I just – there's been enough death. She can _help_. And for any crimes she's committed... death isn't atonement. Atonement is _action_. I – you said you stood up to the World Security Council because they were playing God. Taking her life like this, judge, jury and executioner – that's playing God all the same. Please, don't be like them."

Footsteps, overhead; Pepper came running into the room holding a lit AR, exclaimed, "Oh my god!" and – finally; how had she not lost them before now? – took off her high heels and began climbing her way over to Tony – not easy, although at least Tony had been on the opposite side of where the grating had collapsed. Steve, looking upward through two layers of it, could see his body, slumped more or less safely against the big reactor.

_"The comparison of these crimes is an insult to humanity,"_ ULTRON replied. _"And whereas the Council made that catastrophic decision entirely in error – the nuclear missile did _not_ shut the Chitauri portal – this is, by far, the wisest decision to make. Agent Romanoff is a skilled liar and manipulator. Her known history suggests that when given a chance to speak, she is far more dangerous than when simply in combat; she has, on two separate occasions, talked opponents into suicide. I am not surprised to see she has managed to sway you over, Captain Rogers, but I warn you that, should you continue, you will be placing the lives of every person on this earth in jeopardy – and that is not something I can allow." _

"There have to be methods by which you'd be able to keep an eye on her," Steve insisted. "Even if you don't trust her – look, you've got all the firepower in the room, in the entire complex. Um," he added. "Natasha, maybe drop the gun."

It clattered to the floor.

"ULTRON, Mr. Stark's not waking up," Pepper called from above. Glancing upward, Steve saw that she was crouched beside him. "He needs a medical scan, at the very least."

"It's a sedative," Natasha said, raising her voice. "Otherwise harmless. It'll wear off in about two hours and he'll be fine."

"Please," Steve said to ULTRON. "You know the right thing to do."

Movement behind him – he turned his head, more slowly this time, and saw that Natasha had pulled out a knife. For a moment, Steve felt his stomach lurch for a reason other than getting the stuffing kicked out of him. She turned the blade over, balancing it in her hand – and then tossed it away. It skittered up against the concrete wall and stilled. Then, methodically, she pulled out another, and tossed it away too.

For a long, tense moment – during which Steve could practically feel his face swelling up; Natasha had given him a _beating_ – ULTRON didn't say anything. Finally, though, the repulsors engaged; the armour jetted upward, and over to the edge of the building. _"You will obey all orders given," _ULTRON's voice floated downward. He sounded more machine-like than normal – definitely not happy. _"If you disobey or attempt to escape, to perform further sabotage, or to harm any being in this facility, you will be executed on the spot."_

"I already regret this," Natasha said, sounding resigned, as her gauntlets followed the knives, even though they must have been unpowered – she hadn't used them during the fight.

Steve smiled at her. It made his face hurt, but that didn't matter.

There was no reluctance to her movements as she helped Steve up the iron-rung ladders – now visible, since the lights were on. The help, Steve had to admit, was greatly needed; even aside from the dizziness, he had an arm and a leg that weren't working properly, not to mention all his other aches and pains making themselves known now that the adrenaline was wearing off. When he was finally back up to the hallway, she left him propped up against the wall beside the suited armour, and then clambered her way back over to Tony, hoisted him up over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and carried him back over. She was moving stiffly, too, though – Steve had gotten in a _few_ hits. Mostly by luck rather than anything else, he admitted ruefully.

When he got home, he was going to spend more time practicing fighting blindfolded. Heck – maybe he'd practice fighting tag-teamed. There'd be two of them. That would be weird -

He was probably a bit loopy. Concussion, after all.

Pepper was the last one out, standing on shaky legs that were still probably less shaky than anything Steve could manage at the moment. She looked over them – the armless armour, Tony tossed over Natasha's shoulder, Natasha herself looking grim and stoic – and Steve, too, sitting leaned against the wall, one eye rapidly swelling shut – and took a deep breath. "Well. Okay." It was her CEO tone, her don't-get-flustered-no-matter-what-Tony-does tone. "Where do we go from here?"

* * *

_Re..._

Tony's head felt like somebody had stuffed cotton balls up through his nose and into his brain. And possibly down his throat, too; as he came awake he tried to swallow, and immediately started coughing, scrunching his gummy eyes back together. This was... vaguely familiar. He put one hand to his chest – more of a flailing action than any smooth movement – and felt the reassuring metal ridges of the arc reactor.

"Easy," said a warm voice above him – Steve. "You've been out a couple hours." He helped Tony sit up, his hand warm on Tony's bare skin – why had he taken his shirt off, again? Oh, right – and held out a mug of water with a straw in it. "Here."

Tony sipped water greedily, trying to wash away the cotton-ball taste of sedative, and trying to avoid leaning into Steve's support too much, no matter how comfortingly solid he felt. Ugh. Romanoff, _again?_ He should have known as soon as the lights went out – who _else_ would SHIELD send into the dark, to sabotage and wreak havoc? He glanced upward, and caught full sight of Steve.

"Shit, you look like you took on Chuck Norris," he blurted.

"I have a mean roundhouse," said a dry voice off to the side, and Tony managed to dump water all over himself as he scrambled for repulsors, gauntlet, shield – and where was Steve's shield, anyway? Now that he thought of it, he couldn't remember ever seeing this world's version of it – _anything_ that might be a defense, namely _space,_ although that wasn't the easiest thing to accomplish with the sedative lingering in his veins and he nearly ended up elbowing Steve in his other eye before he managed to get off the couch – they were back in the lab, what? _Shit_ what was she – and nearer to the door. At which point he realized that neither Romanoff nor Steve had moved, except for the latter bending down to pick up the mug and straw he'd dropped.

"What the _hell_?" Tony exclaimed. And _where _was – oh. The armour he'd been working on overhauling was back in one piece, aside from the arms – which were still disassembled, and, okay, that looked very weird – standing like a motionless sentry by the door – but that was certainly not where Tony had left it, and combined with the lights being on, that probably meant that ULTRON was online.

_Shit_. Had he underestimated SHIELD that badly? Could they have actually compromised ULTRON to the extent that they'd be –

Natasha moved – not far, just a readjustment of posture more than anything else – and the armour whirred slightly. The shoulder missiles were out, Tony saw. And trained on her.

So. Prisoner.

Given that it was _Natasha_, Tony couldn't say he felt all that much more confident about the situation. The repulsors and arm frames were over on a table, not ten feet away, laid out carefully – clearly, it had not been him who'd taken them off him.

"She's surrendered to our custody," Steve said firmly.

"Uh-huh," Tony muttered. Where was his _shirt_? Any of them would do, although he'd prefer _all _of them; he'd become accustomed to wearing layers. It wasn't really that cold in here, but with the lights all on, he felt... exposed.

Ha, there were at least a couple dozen reporters back home who'd get a laugh out of _that_ one. And – there. It was over on the desk that Agent Assassin was currently sitting at. Great.

And he'd already flinched, so no doubt she'd noticed, and, with her near-telepathic abilities of reading people, knew that he might be, maybe, a bit scared of her, and – _damn_ it. He scowled, marched over, and grabbed his shirts (still all tangled together), pulling them over his head before backing away and, deliberately, turning his back on her.

It wasn't really much of a show of confidence. There wasn't anything he could do to stop her if he was _facing_ her, either – aside from the fact that the armour standing guard wouldn't let that happen. Probably. Unless she'd actually managed to upload a virus that would fuck with the targeting system. But if he'd been out a couple of hours, then ULTRON would have caught and repaired that by now, right?

"She can help us out with that problem you've been working on," Steve said evenly – easily.

He was, Tony thought, a rather different guy from the one he remembered from just before the invasion – easier in his skin, comfortable with taking charge in verbal battles as well as actual melee. Tony hadn't paid much attention to him over the last few days – the physics called him – but... there was something in him that Tony thought explained why he had memories of letting this Steve drag him out of his lab for sparring practice.

Well, unfortunately for Steve, even if he _was_ comfortable being in charge, at the moment he was being a flat-out idiot – and if Tony had never been one for following orders, then that went double for really dumb ones. He could make stupid decisions perfectly well all by himself, thanks.

Like Pepper...

_Don't think about that. _

"Right. And what does the Black Widow get out of this?"

"It's really not that complicated," she said easily, and Tony felt his eyebrows shoot up, because _that_ line he remembered – and clearly. Apparently – he confirmed with a glance – so did Steve. "I'm not interested in being Dr. Banner's slave. He doesn't like me and I don't like him. But since ULTRON doesn't exactly give chances to defect, working for him has been my only option. I can help you deal with him."

Tony facepalmed. "You _told_ her?"

"She guessed."

He rolled his eyes. "So you told her." Because this was Natasha Romanoff, who could intuit _anything_ out of body language – she didn't need to guess.

"I don't know what you're planning," she said, body language – conciliatory, very conciliatory; well done Natasha, he thought, catching himself just before he could believe her. No doubt Steve was drinking this up like – well, like he did alcohol, four-times-faster-metabolism and all. "But Captain Rogers – who appears to be a very... _different_... man from the one in this world – informed me that there might be a way for me to leave Dr. Banner's employ without invoking his _impressive_ wrath. That sounds like a better option for me than hopping to another world with him and hoping there's more of a chance to slip away there – assuming he doesn't just kill me once he has no further use for me. Like I said – he doesn't like me either."

"Further use?" Tony fidgeted, crossed over to the table with the repulsor gauntlets... he wished he could hook them back up, but it would be moronic to interfere with the suit while it was currently their only guard against a murderous assassin. Even if it did make him cringe a bit to watch his suit stand there with no arms. It felt... incomplete. Savaged.

"I'm good at getting into and out of places," she gestured down at herself – and come to notice, she wasn't wearing her usual cat-suit, or regular clothes – she was wearing a harness, full of straps and... oh, aha. Of course; she'd needed some way to carry a generator. "We knew this was one of your hubs – a _physically_ secured hub, as little as that means to Dr. Banner's other side. Your invisibility cloak – "

"So'wl," Tony interrupted, in perfect Klingon, because he felt like being a dick, okay?

Natasha ignored him (though Steve shot him a puzzled look), and simply continued on, " – got me past the interior perimeter sensors. I got myself past the rest – I couldn't carry a generator that would last past five minutes. You'll find the generator and the cloak in section D, by the way. I was hoping I could siphon off enough power from your backup to recharge it."

"But instead you hit the trigger and blew it up."

"The program Dr. Banner gave to me to redirect the materials he needed had a time-delay." She paused. "That part was easy. He adapted it off of your virus."

Tony rolled his eyes. Of _course_ he had. Although, good on him, if he'd managed to figure that thing out. Tony had been half-poking at it occasionally and he still had no idea what most of it was really intended to do – although there was always the chance that, crazy as he had apparently been, his coding had just gotten more... eccentric... than normal.

And the guys in R&D complained about his _usual_ habits.

"You were working on the same project." She leaned forward, looking more intent. "Looking for a way to open a portal, one that doesn't displace thousands of copies of whoever goes through."

"Yes, because _this_ is clearly someplace I'd like to live for the rest of my life," Tony said sarcastically, sweeping out an arm. "I figured out how you fucked it up, by the way. I'm actually kinda surprised another me hasn't already flipped, although I suppose they'd need the original machine for that – or just more time. Which is why you can't use it to run away yourselves, isn't it? You _know_ somebody would figure it out and pull you back eventually."

He was just going to ignore the possibility that Alternatony might come get them. Like he had been for the past few days. And anyway, he was making good progress – or had been, until they'd lost their entire supply of rare earth metals, god_damn_it. But, shit, the guy hadn't shown up _yet_ – he'd probably just ditched them entirely. A bit longer, and even Steve would realize that.

"Yes. You figured it out – and you have an address," she said, tilting her head to the side, and watching him with those great big doe eyes – a _predator's_ eyes. "That's more than Dr. Banner has. He should be months ahead of you."

He had an address because he had algorithms written on the insides of his eyelids, formulas he didn't fully understand, but when he scrabbled at them they showed a map of the universe in eleven dimensions, rendered in symbols that were themselves three-dimensional. He had positive test results because he knew what the negative ones were, and Banner had provided the answer to the energy distribution problem – he could slot it into place but he didn't know _how_ it all worked; four days wasn't enough for that.

And even with four days, the more he thought about it, the more he thought that there was something bigger missing. That maybe, his alternate self hadn't just taken a few minutes from him, the sight of whatever lay beyond those stars...

He shook those thoughts away. Too late – she'd have read all his uncertainties on his face, goddamnit – he buried his face in his hands and barked, "_Why_ are we trusting her? For god's sake somebody give me _one reason_. And no, self-interest isn't fucking good enough, I think SHIELD beats that out of you upon joining up, they all want – " he flailed a hand about, " – dedication to the swarm, fuck if I know, _why_ – " – he really needed to stop rambling –

"Because she didn't kill me when she could have," Steve said firmly, coming to both their rescues. "And she didn't kill Pepper."

Pepper, Pepper – where _was_ Pepper? The Pepper from this reality, whom he'd been so emphatically pushing out of his head these last few days, because going anywhere near that was a terrible idea, so bad that even _he_ wouldn't dare – but, "And where's Pepper now, anyway?"

It was ULTRON who answered, speaking for the first time since Tony had woken up. _"She is currently teleconferencing to act as a mediator between several conflicting parties in southern Mexico. A resolution between them would allow the return of the armour currently stationed there as a peacekeeper."_

Obviously, another was needed. In particular, one with arms.

"What _exactly_ did you send back to Banner?" he asked, directing the question at one of his screens. Work, too, would have been a _welcome_ distraction – but not while the superspy was in the room. And it was, all in all, currently useless. Iridium, osmium, rhodium – this needed practically the entire platinum group to work, and what did they have? None of it.

"Nothing," she said calmly. "Not yet."

"You have a radio trigger that can get from B to D and yet you haven't sent messages out? Try again."

"My job was to divert the shipments. I've done that. Beyond that, he doesn't really care, Stark, except to make sure that I haven't deserted – haven't gone over to the other side. I thought I'd grab you and get out. Bring him a present, keep him happy – and you'd been building a portal. I saw. Maybe you could help us all get out of this place quicker." She smiled wryly. "And maybe... well, you're resourceful, when somebody backs you up against the wall."

"Fuck you," he said, low and quiet.

She tilted her head – exposing her throat, the impression of vulnerability, he _knew_ this, he'd looked into this _specifically_ after the whole mess with the Expo, and yet still – "Would you like to?"

"Hey," Steve said as Tony recoiled into himself, rubbing his fingers along the sides of his pants, trying to scrub them clean – the very suggestion made him feel... _dirty_, and he hated it, hated her for that. Damn it. "Enough. Tony, ULTRON – she wants out. We can give her that. And you wanted a way to be able to trick this Banner into getting into a portal headed somewhere harmless?"

Well, that was _one_ way of putting it. Though, 'harmless' – not really what he had in mind. 'Harmless' would give something as powerful as the Abomination time to start from scratch... and if Steve Rogers didn't age, then would Bruce Banner? An immortal enemy sounded _terrible_.

Though apparently it hadn't to whoever _he'd_ pissed off...

Tony sighed, loudly. "ULTRON, please tell me you fried any electronics she had – "

_"Of course."_ ULTRON sounded mildly insulted.

"ULTRON told me about what happened with the virus," Steve said. "Banner was impatient – and that's key. He has to know that he has a limited amount of time before ULTRON comes after him for those rare metals, so he'll be in a hurry."

"Especially with the Colorado factory near completion," Natasha commented.

Tony frowned. "The what?"

"A factory to mass-produce Iron Men armours," she said, very matter-of-factly.

Tony wished he could glance at ULTRON with irritation. Narrowing his eyes was a poor substitute – because, seriously, that _would_ have been nice to know, that if they held out long enough they'd have an actual _army_. Armies were great things! Especially against the Hulk/Abomination/whatever, who tended to go through them like paper, thus ensuring that you needed arm_ies_, plural.

"He'll probably try to take you with him," he pointed out.

"So come up with a design that transports people one at a time." She shrugged. "I won't be the first one through."

"So we're killing some random SHIELD employee," he pointed out – mostly to rattle Steve.

This was a _terrible_ idea. Steve needed to realize that.

"Some of them wouldn't mind," Natasha said quietly. "Radiation poisoning." Right. New Orleans. Population: ten million cockroaches. (A lie. Cockroaches weren't _that_ immortal.)

"And you?"

A hint of a smile. "I was never going to die of old age."

"If we take her back to our world, SHIELD can treat her," Steve said firmly, looking disappointingly not-rattled about whatever SHIELD agent might be biting the bullet. Then again, he was all about people throwing themselves on grenades, wasn't he? "It might not be enough – but it's something. And – " he hesitated, then – second thoughts? Or was he realizing that he was thinking about _Tony_ getting them home, not his alternate self – that Tony Stark was a flake in any universe? Bad timing, Cap. " – to be honest, the way we left it... I think we might need proof so that SHIELD doesn't think we're nuts."

"Fury's cuckoo for cocoa-puffs, we'll be fine," Tony said dismissively. "He'll probably want the portal tech, though. That can be our crusade for the next year."

Steve frowned, looking like he wanted to argue – then shook his head. Why? Why wasn't Steve Rogers, he-of-the-very-stubborn-jaw, willing to argue? Instead, he just turned back to Natasha, and – very earnestly, with the earnestness of a thousand puppies – said, "SHIELD isn't always on the side of angels back home, but they try to be. These days, we do a pretty decent job of keeping them there. And if you've got red in your ledger," so he _had_ heard that part of the speech, "you can wipe it out, with us. Our Bruce is a pretty great guy."

"Yeah, he _ran_ from the military," Tony muttered, firmly ignoring the ball of guilt sitting behind his arc reactor.

_'You need to strut_,' he'd said.

_Moron_.

"How do we do this, then?" Natasha asked, perfectly business.

"Oh no no," Tony said, raising one hand. "Not so fast." Shit, this was _way_ too fast – he did _not_ like this. "You're missing one of the big questions."

"Which is?"

He grinned at her, showing teeth. "I nearly blew you up. Why would _you_ trust _me_ to portal you anywhere_?_"

"You blow up a lot of things, Stark, I didn't take it personally." She shrugged. "Have you ever thought that maybe you'd been given a second chance and really, completely fucked it up?"

He snorted. "You know I have."

Her eyes slid left, to Steve. "And then just when you feel like the worst sort of scum in the world, somebody offers you a third." A pause. "A willingness to believe your enemies are better than they are is a very effective negotiating tool, Captain – one that the Steven Rogers I knew didn't have."

Steve shifted, flushing – but he met Tony's eyes firmly. Tony made a face at him, and he frowned back, managing to look righteous _without_ the stick up his ass.

Six months of settling in had done wonders for the kid.

_"Agent Romanoff, please exit this room,"_ ULTRON said, breaking their debate of expressions. Natasha climbed to her feet without hesitation, although as she walked along – out the automatically-opening glass door – and down the hallway, she glanced back every so often, as if looking for verbal cues that she wasn't doing anything her armless guard didn't want her to do. It tromped after her – no grace at all, he'd need to look at the leg and foot servos, it shouldn't be that awkward – and left the two of them alone.

Well, the three of them. ULTRON, like JARVIS, was ever-present, and Tony took some comfort in this fact.

And thinking of ULTRON – _"I will not consent to letting Agent Romanoff wander off without a failsafe in place,"_ he announced flatly, as soon as the glass door had silently slid closed again.

Tony made a face. "Any small bug's going to be hard to get past an EMP, anything larger'll be hard to hide."

_("Their set-up wouldn't withstand a nuke, but they make up for it. Anything small enough to go ordinarily undetected can't withstand the EMPs.")_

He frowned. Why was Steve – other-Steve – considering _nuking_ SHIELD? That was a terrible idea all over. Maybe he was missing the context? But now was not the time.

_"I was not thinking of something designed to transmit or receive long-range."_ One of the screens turned on and a CAD program opened, showing something that was... shielded, yes, and _tiny_. It practically hid itself, too; if you knew _exactly _what you were looking for then, sure – but it would have encryption to prevent hacking, and it basically masqueraded as part of the spinal structure, an elegant, spindly thing.

_C3,4,5, keep you alive._

"A kill switch."

_("Call it insurance, Dr. Lu,"_ and Jesus Christ how did he sound that _careless_ – _)_

Tony swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.

_"One that would operate on a timer. Should Agent Romanoff fail to return to have it deactivated within a set period – given the parameters, a week seems optimal – then it would detonate."_ Of course. A lack of transmitter _would_ make it easier to shield.

"That's not acceptable," Steve said, standing and crossing his arms over his chest.

_"There is no alternative acceptable path,"_ ULTRON said, ruthless and cold. _"Providing her with the means to an escape, with no outside form of control, is risking more than two billion lives. SHIELD _will_ order the remaining nuclear missiles under their control launched. My resources are stretched too thin already; I have barely managed to compromise a dozen of the sites. _I_ shall survive, of course – but humanity will be doomed."_

"We're better than this," Steve said, and damned if he didn't sound so _certain_ of it. "We can find another way.

Tony swallowed again; and coughed, to try to make his throat less hoarse, to try to get rid of the taste of that memory in his throat. "Well. We could _ask_ her."

"The same way you asked Lu, Parks, and Nevsky?"

_("You were willing to help an alien looking to enslave the Earth. Considering that, this _really_ isn't an outrageous request."_

_"And if I refuse?" Black eyes looked at him _– steadily, with rage there, but with more fear, oh, god –

_"Well, I could let you go free. I'm pretty sure you won't be able to outrun SHIELD for very long – hey, I was lucky I got to you first." Fabric rustling_; he'd shrugged_. "But it would be pretty irresponsible of me to let them get their hands on you, considering your morals and theirs line up in some really irritating ways."_ The view shifted as he leaned forward. _"C'mon, don't pout. What were you _expecting_ me to say?")_

"Lu and Parks worked for Loki," he found himself saying, his tone flat. _(Dossiers, papers_ – he knew they had.) "Nevsky was building dirty bombs in his basement – he killed two of the FSB who went to arrest him, he's dangerous. Romanoff's dangerous – "

"They're dead." Steve's voice was quiet, hard. "Without you or JARVIS to authorize it we couldn't get them out of Shenzhen. They died."

What? That didn't make sense. "But JARVIS should have – why the hell didn't Pepper get the backup?" he demanded.

"She did. Hansen and Borjigin hacked him, they did something that shut him down from outside – he only got a skeleton version of himself uploaded before he was gone." Steve's gaze bore down on him like a physical weight, and Tony felt himself want to shrink before it. Instead he planted his feet, standing defiantly – Steve was wrong. He had to be wrong.

"You said you got out!"

"Rhodey, Natasha, and I got out," Steve corrected.

He ran his hands through his hair. "That doesn't make sense. Maya's never – I wouldn't have showed her JARVIS' code, there's _no_ way she got her hands on it – and she was _not_ a good enough programmer to hack him, neither was Tem – "

_(Code, lines of code _that he didn't understand, but he almost did, because this was familiar_ with comments about functions – terse, written in his own style_ because he never made it easier on other coders, and besides, he was the only one who would be reading them - _functions, subfunctions, all going back to _ .

JARVIS' code – no. Just similar. Why? Why would he put anything similar to JARVIS' code in extremis –

_"You're not a programmer, Maya."_

Because he'd needed it to be smarter than it was.)

Oh, god.

"Yeah, well, _Tem's_ got alien technology and at least two hidden fortresses, did you know _that_?" Steve asked cuttingly, and it was like it was just a week ago, they were back on the Helicarrier again, and then just as now Steve was _right_, _damn_ him, because Tony hadn't known.

What the hell had he been _thinking_, all these months?

No wonder Steve had let Alternatony wipe his memory – Christ, what had Tem and Maya _done_?

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tony, I've been trying!" Steve threw up his hands. "You haven't been listening to a damn word I've said for the past four days – "

- because Steve had let him be mind-wiped, because getting home was more important when this world was a hell-hole, because he'd wanted to make sure that JARVIS was okay – he had to be okay. Tony had more than one backup, he had backups of backups, he could restore JARVIS again –

_"We are straying off course, gentlemen,"_ ULTRON broke in, disapprovingly, making Tony jump – if he'd startled Steve as well, then Steve didn't show it. _"This is not about Mr. Stark's past failures; nor are they relevant to this. I shall be holding the failsafe, and if _I_ am compromised, then there is no doubt that it will have been because of SHIELD's actions."_

"ULTRON, it's _wrong_," Steve said firmly, but Tony only barely noted the words. What else had Steve not told him about what had happened? Steve hadn't said much – because Tony hadn't been willing to listen, not with resentment making his skin itch – but that hadn't been Steve's fault, it had been his own alternate self's, and whatever had happened, _this_ was Tony's. Steve had said Skynet, and Shenzhen, and zombies, and something about Tem having alien technology – _Loki_, and Tony had thought it must have come from Lu or Parks, but if he'd overlooked Tem this entire time... "It's a denial of free will – and what if there's an accident? An EMP, or if it gets detected – "

_"I have a responsibility to this world."_ ULTRON's voice was machine-flat, as resolute as steel. _"I will see that it is carried out. Mr. Stark, I would appreciate your assistance in this matter, but I am capable of fabricating and installing the component autonomously."_

"Ask her," Tony said vaguely. What had happened in Shenzhen? How much were his own memories, dislocated as they were, hiding from him?

"You know she'll say yes – you're not giving her any real choice!"

_"Captain Rogers,"_ ULTRON said with a note of finality. _"This discussion is over. The matter is not up for debate."_


	11. Chapter 11

"I agree," Natasha said.

_("Then it's not like I have a choice."_

_"Nope. Hey, no hard feelings – I was experimenting with politeness, I hear it's a... thing.")_

"You don't have to," Steve argued.

"Yes, I do," she said, sounding both calm and amused from where she sat on one of the beds – apparently, there were actual bedrooms in this place, and Steve had just been sleeping on the couch for fun, or something. Who knew? "You can't order ULTRON to let me go without it, and he _won't_ let me go without it, for good reason. So I agree."

Tony stood leaning in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest – this was a waste of time, even asking her – Steve was right, and Natasha was right: this wasn't a real choice, for all that _ULTRON _was also right – she couldn't be trusted. This was the best compromise. A decently tamper-proof (although nothing was certain) design; and ULTRON could have it fabricated within a few hours. The fact that he'd already _had_ the designs...

In trying this _exact same thing_ Tony had killed three people that he couldn't remember. Not really. Faces, voices – but they might as well have been smoke. And he'd murdered them, given them no choice and laughed about it to their faces –

_"The second issue of import is the nuclear silos that SHIELD controls. They must not be allowed to send the launch codes."_

"Maria will help me with that," Natasha said with complete confidence.

"Maria... Hill?" Steve asked.

A nod. "She doesn't like Banner either. And she doesn't have the vendetta against ULTRON that he does, or that... other members of SHIELD do – she won't nuke the world out of spite. She probably has a plan to prevent those missiles from launching anyway, once Banner is gone."

Depending on the human factor – Tony hated doing that. Of course, this _entire_ plandepended on a very human factor, in the form of the very unreadable Natasha Romanoff, and he _didn't want to be here_. He wanted to pull Steve out of the room, shove him up against a wall and demand he explain everything, tell him in detail – everything Steve had probably been trying to tell him for the past four days, and Tony hadn't been _listening_, because he was a _moron_. An idiot. Complete and total fucking idiot. They had to get home – he had to know, and instead they were sitting here with Romanoff –

He had to focus, had to get this done – he couldn't ask with her here. He rubbed at his face and sighed; regrettably, there were no screens in here. "Can you sneak in a drive?"

She gave him a close-mouthed smile. "Of course."

"I'll load it up with a very discrete virus," he rubbed at his chin, beardless, _naked_. One stupid decision after another – he choked down a hysterical snort of laughter at the comparison of the two. "Something to work with the calculations I'm gonna give you... enough to flip 'em backwards. You'll need to be somewhere near so that you can indicate to it when he's trying to go through – maybe we don't have to kill any SHIELD agents – given the portal, it can redirect it... it's not gonna be compatible with the viewer tech, that's different, so he won't be able to get a look right before..." he was more thinking aloud than anything else, now. The math provided a comforting wall against the uncertainty.

"ULTRON, we can trust her," Steve tried. Of course he was still trying.

_"_You_ can trust her. This is not your world,"_ ULTRON said, with iron inflexibility. _"I do not have that luxury."_

Steve's face pinched with unhappiness.

"Captain," Natasha said, almost gently, "it's alright. I made my bed a long time ago. I'm not afraid to take the knocks for it." Steve started to say something; Natasha held up a hand to stop him. "And if this works – if we actually manage to get rid of Banner? – I'd be willing to give up a lot more for that."

...

"Tell me."

They'd left the room after Natasha had acquiesced. ULTRON had insisted. _"Gambling is a fallacious exercise,"_ULTRON had said, tone flat, like it had been in the prior argument, in everything else that he'd said today. _"Until the failsafe is installed discussing matters in Agent Romanoff's proximity is an unacceptable breach of security."_ So they'd retired to the kitchen – Tony should have gone back to the lab, to help with the fab, but there was no way he could concentrate on it. Not now.

"Are you listening now?" Steve's tone wasn't mocking. Tony might have actually swung at him if it had been, but Steve's eyes were searching – he was being serious.

Tony swallowed, and nodded.

"Extremis is a problem," Steve said, and his voice was too calm, too even. There was no condemnation there, just a plain recital of facts. "It didn't stay confined in the facility."

Shock loosened Tony's tongue, even while his brain went somewhere... _else_, into memories that he couldn't put in order. "What? _How?_ The number of fail-safes in there was ridiculous – " blueprints and schematics crawled past his vision, security protocols and code –

"Borjigin had alien help," Steve reminded him, and Tony clenched his fists convulsively, tucked his arms across his chest. "Something that our alien allies identified as a makluan. Don't know how much tech it shared with him, but Hansen and him got out. They took down JARVIS, most of the world's communications for a day –" of course; if they'd been able to hack JARVIS – he'd underestimated Tem. He'd thought –

_("She's free now, on parole. You could work with her, if you wanted."_

_"If I wa– her work is among the most impressive I've ever seen, Mr. Stark. It would be my very great honour.")_

- he'd been an idiot.

"Extremis got out of facility, then the park."

_No_ –

"The Chinese tried, but they couldn't keep it confined to Shenzhen, either. When I left, there were over a million people infected across China. It's probably worse than that now. SHIELD wasn't confident about a cure. The infected... everyone's been calling them zombies. They don't think anymore. They just attack."

"Oh," said Tony.

Not confined.

A zombie apocalypse. This was ludicrous.

This was _his fault_. He must have known that something was wrong with him – he had memories of talking to a psychiatrist, for god's sake! Discussing 'aural hallucinations' and 'paranoia' and medication and – what the hell had he been thinking? What the hell had he _done_?

_I can fix this_ – through the desperation and panic, he latched onto the thought. He could fix it – extremis was a _techno_virus, that meant he could... reprogram it, somehow. So SHIELD wasn't confident – but SHIELD didn't have him, and his memories, and –

- it wouldn't bring back whoever he'd already gotten killed.

_Didn't stay confined in Shenzhen –_how many people were there in _Shenzhen_ and Steve was saying that was just the starting point and _how many more dead _–

Oh, god.

"SI was already coming apart. Pepper was under arrest – "

"I was what?" Pepper's voice said, and they both turned to look at her. She was standing in the doorway of her office, but she'd changed into business formal – heels included. She looked good – and Tony wanted to go over and drape an arm around her, lean in –

"Our version of you, ma'am," Steve said stiffly.

- and she wasn't Tony's.

Hell, even his Pepper wasn't _his_ Pepper. Not anymore. And thank god for that, because apparently he'd been going insane. He'd kicked off a zombie apocalypse – how many more nightmares would he find waiting for him in still-unprocessed memories, ready to pounce on him the moment he got home? Did he even have a home anymore? How much had he destroyed while he was off his rocker? _Shit._

"I'm leaving," Pepper said, smiling smoothly as though Steve wasn't standing there like a dork and Tony wasn't staring at her, trying to drink in the sight of her. "There's a pair of armours assisting with negotiations between the CCS and Mexico – if I go, one of them can return. And the anti-technological faction responds better to an in-person negotiator, so I might be able to return soon with the other."

"If it's not safe – "

"I'll still have an armour with me," Pepper reminded him firmly, crossing over and holding out her hand – to be shaken. No kiss, not on the cheeks or the lips because this wasn't her, and _his_ wasn't, and – he took her hand, shook it firmly, squeezing only to the point of respectful friendliness. "Mr. Stark." She turned to Steve and gave him a handshake as well. "Captain Rogers. For what it's worth – I think you're right about Agent Romanoff. I hope so, at least."

"Thank you, ma'am," Steve said quietly. "Have a safe trip."

"I will." The vault doors began to open automatically – the manual releases hadn't been pulled back into place. Well, not that there was any armour with arms around to do it, and it wasn't like they'd done any good against Natasha in the first place. And against anybody _not_ as good as her, the magnetic locks were practically overkill; he had memories of looking at their schematics, although he couldn't remember why –

_(_The memory played out and _schematics of the fabrication facilities, details on the equipment, a list of parts... _things he could cannibalize, he realized. This must have been when he was building the ICGs. Why hadn't he just asked ULTRON for what he needed?)

Her heels clicked against concrete as she walked down the B hall away from them, the sounds lingering even as the door began to close again behind her. Neither of them spoke until the muffled booming sounds of it shutting had died away, leaving them alone in the kitchen.

"None of it was her fault," Tony said quietly – he didn't know that, but Pepper didn't exactly feature prominently in his memories, because, of course, he'd been _hiding_ from her, hiding from everybody – but even if she had. Even if. It wouldn't be her fault.

"Of course not," Steve said, his tone slipping out of perfectly neutral for the first time; a touch of indignation. "SHIELD, and the Avengers, we'll make sure she's fine. Fury was looking out for her. But... she was pretty sure SI was doomed, and it's been over a week since then."

Like the company _mattered_. Or like it should matter. Pepper – she mattered. But she'd be better off being an intercontinental peacekeeper – what she, what this one was doing _here_ mattered more. It did.

What sort of monster was he, that hearing that SI was crippled – probably beyond recovery; _Steve_ was the superhuman here, Tony just had brains and guts and – and no miracles to work. But it was nothing, it _should_ be nothing set beside a million people infected due to him, a million people dying, and yet it _hurt_.

"Do you think you can fix extremis?"

"I don't know," Tony ran his hands through his hair wildly, turned around, paced down the hall, came back. "I don't _know!"_ His memories were topsy-turvy, and maybe the key was hidden in them, but as much as extremis was a marvel it was a horror, and the more he looked –

There were things in there, things he'd caught glimpses of in the past four days, things that he'd been ignoring – working his ass off so he could focus on something else, _anything _else. Cold numbers. Calculations he barely understood; other calculations that he was pretty sure shouldn't have worked at all, calculations that should have been meaningless, except that the portal calculations worked and these were similar, far too similar. _Things_ – weapons.

"Hey," Steve said, and Tony flinched away; at some point Steve had moved beside him, and now he reached out and grabbed Tony's shoulders. His hands were steady, warm, reassuringly solid. "You'll figure it out. Okay? I know you can." There was something wrong about his tone – after a moment, Tony realized that it was _reassuring_, that Steve was trying to reassure _him_ – the last person in the world to deserve it. "You haven't really... seen extremis yet," Steve stumbled, "Okay? I know you'll come up with something."

"You don't know that," Tony said, his voice terribly uneven – because he was shaking. Right. So that was why Steve had grabbed him. "You don't know – "

"I know you're brilliant, and you told me yourself you can take apart anything you can build – "

_("– actually, it's a lot easier, and usually a lot more fun if you include some strontium nitrate,"_ his voice sounded _conspiratorial_, of all things – )

" – so you can do this, okay?" Steve finished. "You can."

Tony met his eyes, only for a moment. Blue, oh-so-blue – and believing. Slightly frantic – right, because Tony was apparently on the verge of a meltdown, because he didn't know if he could fix this – he didn't even know what he had _done_, but _Steve_ thought he could, and fuck, there was no choice about it – he had to, so he would. Plain as that. "Right." His voice sounded weak; he cleared his throat and nodded. "Right." Better – he'd take it. "Of course I can."

"We're going to get home, and we're going to fix this," Steve said firmly, and then – more hesitantly – "Okay? You can fix this. It wasn't – it wasn't _you_, the guy that did this, you weren't in your right mind. I know that. SHIELD'll know that."

Right, because Tony's mind was like a wind-up toy – give it a couple of twists and off he goes, shitting out WMDs every couple of steps, a golden goose that laid the crappiest eggs known to mankind. Do not consume raw: cook thoroughly to prevent outbreaks of zombies.

"Of course it wasn't me, we've established that," Tony said brusquely, pushing Steve's hands away and stepping back, stepping _away_. He couldn't let himself lean in any further, no matter how much he wanted to. _Stand on your own two feet, Stark._ "And fuck, of course I'll fix it. Have you met me? I'm Tony fucking Stark, I can fix _anything_."

"Okay." Steve smiled, and for a moment made a gesture that looked like he wanted to shove his hands in his pockets – except that the ridiculous scale mail outfit he was wearing apparently didn't have any, so he ended up sort of tucking them behind him instead, in not-quite 'at-ease' posture, and Tony wasn't sure whether he wanted to laugh or cry. "Um. Okay."

* * *

"It's too difficult getting in or out for SHIELD to keep many people there full-time," Natasha explained as she drew; ULTRON had opened a schematics program for her on the glass screen, and she was using it to chart out the layout of SHIELD's New Orleans base. She'd already drawn the surrounding area. "Terrence, Whyte, Sanders, and Rothmund are Banner's full-time lackeys."

Steve winced. He didn't know any of the latter four as well as he knew Sitwell or Hill, but it was still painful to hear. Natasha gave him a rueful glance, and then went back to drawing.

They were in the lab for this; ULTRON had been willing to permit that while the final touches were put on the kill-switch, so long as the information flow was only one-way. Steve had to keep himself from clenching his fists whenever he thought about it: no amount of argument had prevailed in the face of that implacable insistence. He just had to pray that Natasha came out of it all right.

Nearby, Tony was wearing a surgical mask and gloves as he picked up a long, thin piece of metal with something stuck onto the end – Steve squinted, but he couldn't quite make it out, although it didn't seem to be part of the rest of it. It looked almost fuzzy. Tony squirted it liberally with an unlabelled spray-bottle, then glanced over to Natasha. "Ready?"

"Born to it," Natasha replied easily, setting down the stylus and pulling her hair up to expose the back of her neck.

Tony's eyes crinkled slightly, then smoothed out again, his face going blank – a disturbing look on Tony Stark. He crossed over to stand behind Natasha, holding both the metal rod and the spray-bottle, which he sprayed on Natasha's neck, making her grimace.

"You're sure about this?" Steve couldn't help but ask.

"I'm fine," Natasha said, sounding somewhat annoyed, if muffled by having her chin pressed down to her chest.

"Hold still," Tony said – to the point, but he didn't even sound _distracted_, just... short. He jabbed the tip of the metal rod into her flesh – it suck in maybe an inch and a half, surprisingly deep – and out again in one movement, then sprayed her again with the bottle before turning away. "There." He put the rod and spray-bottle aside, then pulled off the mask and gloves, his movements slightly jerky – almost mechanical.

Steve shouldn't have dumped it all on him like that. Tony had been acting like an ass, but he wasn't – he hadn't been in his right mind for the past six months; for God's sake, he didn't even remember properly what had been happening. Steve had made it sound like it was entirely his fault, and only noticed what he'd been doing too late – and Tony didn't deserve that. Pretty clearly, though, the crazy amount of guilt that Tony had always seemed to carry around hadn't been a symptom of his madness, at least not the madness that Anthony had spelled away. Steve had thought, maybe – thought, and screwed it all up.

Natasha shook her hair back into place and picked up the stylus again. "That easy? You do good work."

_"The tracker does not transmit nor receive any information. In its passive state, it is immune to EMP bursts below the lethal level,"_ ULTRON informed her. _"You will find that the entry site heals quickly. However, should the tracker begin to be removed from its location, or fail to receive the check-in signal within a certain amount of time, you will not survive."_

She tilted her head. "How much time?"

_"Enough for you to complete your mission."_ ULTRON sounded disapproving.

"I haven't even sketched out the entire mission yet," she argued, but her expression was too much like Tony's – flat, distant.

"Playing a game like that is cruel." Steve frowned at the ceiling.

_"This is not a game."_

"There's gotta be more than those four," Tony said abruptly, breaking into the conversation. He'd wandered over to the projection of the fish-tank, and was tracing the slow motion of a fish with one hand, fingertips lightly resting on the glass. "He's not doing that much science alone."

"You're right," Natasha agreed, her lips quirking before she went back to sketching. "He's got a science division there, too – " she listed off half a dozen names that Steve didn't know; but then, he wasn't training with the science division every other day.

Apparently Tony didn't know them, either. "Are those names supposed to mean anything to me?" he asked flippantly – but his posture was still far too tense.

"I guess not," Natasha said, and there was too much affected carelessness in her tone – Steve frowned at her. The Natasha he knew didn't try manipulating her teammates except during poker games. "Mauser is head programmer, as much as – "

Tony snapped his fingers – "_That_ guy, right – "

"Will it be a problem?"

"Problem? Please." He waved a hand, but it was far too artificial – or, Steve thought, maybe it wasn't artificial _enough_: a pale imitation of Tony's usual bombastic gestures and dismissals. "No, but, okay, enough with the physical schematics, we're not going in there with you. What does the code look like?"

"_I'm_ not a programmer, Stark – "

"You didn't get this far being an idiot," he snapped back at her, just a hair too far, and Steve let himself tense in preparation of stepping between them. But Natasha just looked at him coolly, and Tony backed down – too quick, too fast. "Right. Okay, fine, tell me how you'd go about it."

...

They plotted, planned. Steve learned more about Maria Hill than he'd ever wanted to know – although if it was as true to the Maria Hill _he_ knew as this world's Bruce Banner was to his own, he probably didn't know that much in the end. Tony wrote code, then took Natasha through it, snappish and impatient; Natasha told them about security protocols and algorithms, and Steve was surprised to find that he was able to keep up – if only barely. Some of the programming actually made sense.

"Multi-layer virus," Tony said, his fingers dancing over the keys.

"That sounds familiar," Natasha said wryly.

"First part is the data and programs, filled up with traps – they're gonna expect everything you bring back to be encrypted to hell and back, no matter that you pulled it direct off of here. That's why you're gonna have multiple drives, because you're a smart sneaky spy and they're gonna manage to fuck up with the first. Probably they won't plug it into their own systems, if they do... well, they get to rebuild with ULTRON living in their systems, that's fine." Tony shrugged. "Second part is the sneaky part, it sends out feelers while the first part's doing its thing, lays low. You have a backup of that and the third part on another drive, just in case they're _really_ careful with the drives and start recopying things manually to avoid letting any of it contaminate – in which case they _might_ fuck up some essential programs."

"You have something that can get a drive past metal detectors?" Natasha asked archly.

Tony picked up something from the work-table – a rubber ball, a little smaller than a baseball – and tossed it to her. She plucked it from the air and frowned at it, until managing to twist it open into two halves; it was hollow inside. "I'm sure you can figure out something with that. It won't show up on any scanner." His expression was dark, serious – none of the rude joking that Steve was pretty sure usually would have accompanied something like that.

"I'll live with it," Natasha responded, now _extra_ dry.

"Second part doesn't do anything overt. Banner, Mauser, whoever the fuck, they run experiments as normal, verify all my _stolen_ data, find a world they like and open a window to it. _But _the second part gets into absolutely everything, ready to unpack the third part. That – the third – is the override. You enter this code into any infiltrated machine, it takes over and re-routs the destination without giving out any hints, nice and discrete. Enter it again, it stops re-routing, the machine returns to normal behaviour."

"Where's it re-route to?" Steve asked, continuing to squint at the code. The way Tony was talking about multiple parts – Steve could only see one – the code was beginning to make _less_ sense.

"Here." Tony tapped at his keyboard and the code vanished; Steve scrubbed at his eyes, and when he looked back again, it had been replaced with... more code. Or, no – this was some sort of data file, it seemed like, although he had only the vaguest idea of what it was supposed to be showing.

"That's a world?"

"High carbon dioxide content," Natasha said, examining the screens. Steve tried to follow what she was looking at, but it was all too much gibberish, acronyms that he didn't know – at least he thought they were acronyms. "And... low temperature."

"Warm enough." Tony tabbed back over to the code. "Look at this, not that – it's not important."

"The Abomination won't be deterred by a bit too much CO2. Believe me, we'd have tried that first, if it worked. You said you didn't want to let him escape to terrorize another world."

"Hey," said Steve, sharply, not because her words were heated – but because they _weren't_. They were so indifferent that hearing them felt... painful. Natasha _cared_. The one he knew did, and this one – she hadn't killed Pepper. She had a conscience. This had to be an act.

"And it would be a problem," Tony said, his words muffled, constrained behind his teeth, "if this were another Earth. It's not. And there are no indications of sentient lifesigns. He'll be fine. Cold, but fine."

Steve blinked, and leaned back in his chair, testing his balance – better than it had been. The mild dizziness from the concussion had worn off hours ago: the serum was definitely coming back.

Not Earth – well, why not? If they could get to alternate realities, then why not a different world within one of those realities?

But not death. Hopefully, not a fate worse than death, either – 'cold, but fine'? "How fine?"

"Fine. There's extremely primitive flora. No fauna. Low mineral content, ergo low chance of a Cthulu-like reappearance on another world in the next five thousand years. _Fine_."

Right. Fine. If he could trust Tony. The thought was nauseating. Lord, _could_ he trust Tony not to do something so completely, lethally over the top?

_Better worry about ULTRON instead_, he told himself – ULTRON was the one who would have ultimate control over whatever got loaded on those discs, after all. Steve sighed and resisted the urge to rub a hand against his face; it wouldn't do anything and acting worked up would probably just set Tony even further on edge. He turned to Natasha instead. "What'll you tell them about what you found here?"

"I found you, I found you making your own systems, so I diverted _some_ of the materials," her emphasis was obvious, "and copied over your data."

"They've seen Steve," Tony noted. He was already buried in programming again, three screens up around him – Steve didn't know how he managed to track them all. With the serum working full-power Steve probably could've done it, but he couldn't have managed to _understand_ them all properly and keep writing more code, that was for sure. "What've they been guessing?"

"Nothing for certain," Natasha said, eyeing Steve speculatively – as if she were allowing herself to do so, now, for the first time. "I won't ask how you got here."

"Damn right," Tony muttered.

"It's fine."

"Yes, it's fine," Natasha agreed. "So. I'll pick Banner's second-favourite explanation for your appearance in St. Louis, with a bit of modification: SHIELD in your world figured out what happened, with your counterpart's help," she nodded to Tony. "They couldn't figure out how to get you home, but they could send somebody after you, with the data they had, hopefully to help you get back and to keep you out of trouble and danger: and of course Captain America would insist. Steve Rogers is responsible for his people, after all." There was something in the too-neutral way she said that, something that made the hair on the back of Steve's neck stand up; it wasn't a compliment. "And, of course, if the Captain kept jumping using the trace method, he'd find out who initiated the loop – and he could stop them."

"Then they'll start thinking we're on their tails, again," Steve objected.

"You're making me seed in a lot of data here, Romanoff."

"He puts in looping portal calculations – failed ones," Natasha pointed at Tony, "along with the successful ordinary portal data."

"Which is still untested and untried, since you made off with all my platinum family metals..."

"But your simulations were looking good." Natasha smiled. "I saw _that_ much."

"Yeah, yeah, I should've beefed up security ages ago – fine." Tony grimaced, dour again. "I'll make sure to note in future that Saskatchewan is not adequate defense against espionage."

"There's no place on Earth that is," Natasha agreed. "Though speaking of that, if we're not done soon then I should really go check on my jet. Its stealth technology isn't really up to withstanding northern winters."

"I'm done, gimme your drives," Tony said, beckoning at Natasha impatiently until she fished out three, only one of which looked anything like an ordinary thumb drive. Steve had no idea how the other two were supposed to be plugged in – they didn't even look like they _could_ be plugged into anything – but after a moment of rummaging around on another table Tony came up with something that apparently would do the job, and a moment later he handed them back, along with a fourth drive that Steve _did_ recognise: the small, round button-like device that Tony had used to hack the Helicarrier. He'd shown it to Steve in the lab months ago, when explaining – although Steve really hadn't understood – about how it could hack in without either a port _or_ a wireless network.

"Banner knows about these," Natasha announced, looking closely at it. "And he told SHIELD ages ago – had security program in defenses against it, in case ULTRON got a spy in." She smiled faintly at the ceiling, and set the button on a table beside her. "No go."

"Then you better convince them not to copy it manually."

"That won't be difficult. They're in a hurry. Once the drives come up clean, _finally_..." she held her hands up and shrugged. "You haven't seen Banner – he's impatient."

"I got that, thanks."

"And if Hill won't flip?" Steve asked. The plan was simple on paper – Natasha would walk in, hand over the information, and let Tony's drives do the work. When it came time to power up the single-person portal, she'd be waiting for Banner to step through – and she'd cue the program to redirect him.

"She'll be more likely to if she knows that the redirect isn't permanent," Natasha said bluntly.

For the first time in hours, ULTRON spoke up. _"Maria Hill is responsible for following unlawful orders and cooperating in the act of genocide. She cannot be permitted to escape."_

"Yeah, well, deals with the devil," Tony shrugged half-heartedly, and Steve was reminded of the strong smell of sulphur, an arm around his shoulders, and a voice, whispering in his ear, bringing up images...

He shoved the thought away. No matter how much he disapproved of Anthony's acceptance of some evil as _necessity_ – an acceptance that Tony clearly shared, even if he were not half so far gone now that he was no longer delusional – that was an argument that they needed to be having in private... and it was one that Steve needed to consider more carefully. He didn't want to throw all of Tony's past mistakes in his face again – mistakes that Tony had made when he wasn't mentally fit, mistakes he couldn't remember the reasons for making.

"Then lie," Steve said. He wasn't talking about the woman _he _knew; that Hill was Fury's to the bone. Oh, she'd question the Director – but she wouldn't have gone along with nuclear war; she was cut from the same sort of cloth. And if Steve hadn't said it explicitly, then Natasha would have gone along with it anyway – but couching this type of order in vague terms was a cowardly, unfair action. "You can get her to trust you?"

"She'll _want_ to," Natasha said confidently. "That makes it easy."

There was something in her smile that was slightly too empty. If she'd been his teammate, Steve would have taken her aside and asked her about it – but she wasn't. She was a different person – and apparently the Steve Rogers in this universe was, too, if the hints Natasha had dropped were any indication. When they got back to their world... he wondered if what their Natasha would think of his decision, if she would think it stupid, or resent it – maybe it wasn't fair to her, Steve thought guiltily. Natasha didn't deserve having her past mistakes thrown in her face, either, especially when she was even _less_ responsible for whatever this Natasha had been forced to do than Tony was for what he'd been doing while out of his head. But it was less unfair to bring her back than it would be to leave her here – or so he hoped.

Steve tucked the thought away. He'd picked his course of action and given his word; he'd stick to it. Besides, it was no use borrowing trouble. First they had to wait and see if this Natasha managed to trick this Bruce Banner into exile – or at least what he _hoped_ was exile.

He wondered if he'd ever feel a hundred percent sure that Tony had told the truth about that.

* * *

For the first day after Natasha left, Steve's constant hovering had Tony on the edge of snapping at him. Normally, Tony wouldn't have held back – but, Jesus, sometime in the past six months he'd gone completely nuts and kicked off a zombie apocalypse. Steve was right to hover. He couldn't be trusted.

Shit. Even if he'd lost control of his weapons in the past, letting Obie run the company – at least the weapons had behaved exactly how he'd expected. People did shitty things, and if he'd made nightmares, he'd known their dimensions down to the last micron. Now when he closed his eyes and went looking, the schematics were half myth, half magic, and entirely horrific – and they were horrors he couldn't understand. Him!

By the third day of waiting, Tony actually found himself _glad_ of Steve's constant presence, and all-too-aware of when he was briefly gone, cooking or sleeping. It wasn't like Tony needed to sleep, after all. Not anymore. Not what he'd become.

The portal data, the tests, the codes, the calculations – it had been strange, incomprehensible in places, but it had been... clean. When Tony went searching through his memories for it, what he found was _science _(shitty or otherwise) – aside from memories of scientists he'd never met, scientists who looked back at him with fear in their eyes. But the science itself was focused on one thing only, and that was _transport._

When he went looking for the extremis' code, though, he found more than he wanted. Half his own code he didn't understand – half, at _least_ – and the other half... it was mixed up with other fragments of code, other schematics and designs. He'd stumble across designs for nano-structures and until he followed them all the way to the end – the zoom-out point – he couldn't be sure if they were for the enhancile, or for something way more lethal.

And sometimes, he _was_ sure, and that was even worse. These were weapons that could put anything else he'd worked on, anything his dad had ever worked on, to shame.

_Ants. Boot. _

Tony threw an arm over his eyes and forced himself not to shiver. The screens were all dark, as they had been for nearly the entirety of the last three days – he couldn't confide this to ULTRON's servers, couldn't confide this to _anyone_. Something in all these designs had to be _wrong_; it couldn't possibly be that easy to destroy an entire world, or somebody even stupider than he was would have stumbled across it ages ago and wiped the map clean, left behind only a multiverse full of dust. This wasn't a case of human technology only now reaching a crisis point, not when there were at least two civilizations out there that were way beyond them. But maybe they knew how to deal with it. Maybe – but without knowing, he couldn't trust this to anyone else. That he himself knew was bad enough.

ULTRON had been quiet since Natasha had left, anyway – either taken up with his other tasks or sitting in glowering disapproval, Tony wasn't sure. They'd barely talked. He'd barely talked to Steve, either; he couldn't look at him without hearing him say, _'When I left, there were a million infected,'_ and needing to do something, to keep _looking_, or else go crazy. Crazi_er_.

Fucking _Loki_. When they got back, Tony was going to find whatever hole Loki had been dropped into, pull him out, and drag the answers out of him one at a time.

Except if it _wasn't_ Loki who had fucked with his brain –

Tony didn't even know what the code he was looking at _did_, half the time. How could he possibly fix this?

"Coffee?"

Steve's voice startled him out of his reverie, and Tony dropped his arm, leaning forward so that his chair wasn't tilted back _all_ the way. Steve was holding out a mug, and without tasting it Tony knew it would be exactly the way he liked it – black, lots of sugar – because that was the exact same way that Steve had been bringing his coffee for the past week, except that until three days ago, until Natasha, Tony had been so intent on ignoring Steve that he hadn't even noticed that Steve knew how he took his coffee. Of course Steve knew how he took his coffee – they'd lived together for six months, been _friends_ for six months... but none of Tony's memories were his own. They were someone else's, some stranger who'd been living in his skin.

Except it hadn't been a stranger, it had been _him_ who'd fucked over the world and unleashed an honest-to-god zombie apocalypse – and he was no closer to figuring out _how_ than he had been three days ago.

"It's just coffee," Steve said, a bit uncertain-sounding, and Tony realized that he was glaring at the mug.

He reached out and took it. "Um. Thanks." Not a word he often said.

"Anything?"

"No." He paused. That should have been the end of their daily ritual on that regard – half the time Tony wished that Steve would be like Pepper, would put his foot down and insist that Tony _get it done, already_, except that Pepper wouldn't have done that here either. He wished Steve would yell at him; it was becoming too loud inside his head. He needed to hear it said aloud, screamed at him, maybe, and okay, he could admit that probably that was a bit unhealthy. But he just wished –

"There's nothing. There is _nothing_. I don't even know why I was doing it – " The words spilled out before he could stop them. "It's useless. Meaningless. Code doesn't _work_ like that – the fundamental idea behind programming is that it's _symbolic_, it's all ones and zeroes getting told to turn into zeroes and ones that symbolize something else – but these runes, these codes? They're not, there's nothing behind them, that's _it_. There's nothing to make them mean anything!" He raked a hand through his hair, nearly spilling his coffee all over himself with the violence of the motion.

Steve sat down on the nearer arm of the couch, legs outward – a comfortable distance away; Tony thought he might have flinched if Steve had moved closer. The thought of contact was unbearable, disgusting. "You... nearly explained it to us," he said slowly.

"What?" What? When?

"You made a hologram. It had messages for all of us – except that Skynet erased most of 'em." Steve's voice was quiet, barely louder than the background noise of the fans whirring. "You couldn't say much, you said, but there were messages – "

_("Rhodey – hey, I probably went out with a bang, right? Tell me I did – you know that's how I always wanted to go – oh, don't tell me I died from something stupid, that's just being a downer, you know it, Jesus, smile won't you, sugarplum? I left you a present – suit's not gonna upgrade itself, but JARVIS has... mm, let's say he's got some toys to add on." He was looking up at one of the workshop's security cameras; his voice became more serious. "Don't let Hammer play with these, hey? Or any other government contractors – you know how shoddy they are, all work and no play makes blowing things up a bad pastime – okay, maybe I'm mixing that up somewhere..._

_"Bruce, you've got an entire lab to play with. You better do something amazing with it – and then go and tell people you're amazing, hey? Learn to strut, it's how you get funding unless you're a bazillionaire – I guess you could just stay on Pepper's good side. Not hard for you – you being. Well. You."_He couldn't read his own tone; how would Bruce have taken it?

_"Agents. Sorry, no extra presents for you – you've already got your prototypes. But I..." someone swallowed; _him_. "I can't really put this to anyone else, can I? You'll get what'll need to be done – you need to convince Fury, if he doesn't believe me. And you need to – you need to destroy it, after. Please. This isn't the type of thing that can be left anywhere, it has to cease to exist. I'm sorry." His view moved _as he shook his head_. "I really am – god, I am. I shouldn't be asking this of you, except I know you'll do it, and I know – you'll understand why._

_"Steve... you won't. You never would – I know you're not him, though he wouldn't either. You're more alike than I thought you were. I'm so sorry. God, I hope you never see this, but what're the odds? Higher than I'd like – too high. Played them all my life, and now this – I wish to god I hadn't left you there. Steve, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have –_

_"No, damn it, erase that. That's not what I wanted to say.")_

"Tony?"

"I kinda want to punch past-me in the face sometime," Tony replied, and wow, what a way to fail at 'lightly sarcastic'. He leaned over, resting his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. "Nothing. Nothing that would explain anything." Why the hell did he have to turn into a paranoid, incomprehensible lunatic at the same time he turned into a – well, a lunatic?

"Sorry."

"For what?" Tony snorted. "You had to ask, you know it."

Steve shrugged; his mail clinked with the movement. "Doesn't mean I can't... sympathize," he said, sounding awkward.

Right, because Captain America had ever woken up and found out he'd become a mass-murderer – again.

_"Gentlemen,"_ ULTRON interrupted, his voice pleasant – out-of-place pleasant, he'd never sounded that happy in the week prior. It was a welcome distraction anyway, and not just because ULTRON had been so quiet for the past three days. _"I am receiving a message originating from the New Orleans facility."_

"What?" Tony asked, as Steve said, "Play it."

_"This is confirmation that I have completed mission parameters,"_ Natasha's voice filled the room. _"Dr. Banner is safely off world, shunted to the address you provided to me, and the order for a full stand-down was sent in place of the nuclear launch codes. All other SHIELD personnel have evacuated the site. I am aware that that the latter was not in my mission parameters. The equipment here remains ready to be used. I'll be waiting for you in Kisatchie to guide you in. Romanoff out."_

Steve smiled – switching gears way faster than Tony was managing to, but _fuck_ – "She did it."

"Capable lady," Tony said, voice sour – for no reason that had anything to do with _Natasha_, except in all the way it did. She'd done it, they could go home –

- and he had no answers for when they got there.

_"Capable of ensuring that the remnants of SHIELD will need to be tracked down at a later point,"_ ULTRON said, but through the disapproving note he still sounded happy.

"We can get home," Steve said eagerly. "ULTRON – " he bit his lip. "The suits would probably be a good idea, to prevent radiation exposure, although I've got Anthony's ward, but – "

_"I am rather pressed for armours."_

"Romanoff isn't keeling over and dying, we'll be fine for a brief exposure until we get under cover."

Steve had 'wards' – Tony had seen them flare, and even if he thought that Anthony probably had fucked off somewhere else, the guy had been able to fly and wipe memories; he knew his stuff. Steve would be fine. And Tony himself was fucking _immortal_, so he'd probably live through whatever cancer he might develop.

God knew he'd deserve it.

"Then – if we take a quinjet," said Steve, and how was he that eager to be home, when he knew what waited –

_So you're a coward now? What happened to all that Stark steel?_

Time to pay the piper. He had the sudden temptation to press his hand against the AR and push on the active cloak – turn invisible – run, hide, _stop existing_, but that was stupid, and shit, he deserved to pay. He _needed_ to pay for this. He needed to _fix_ it.

But he was out of time.

_"A quinjet is available in section E."_

Steve – ever-thoughtful, of course – picked up both mugs of coffee and vanished into the kitchen; a moment later, the sink turned on – he was probably washing the cups. Tony grabbed a thumb-drive and followed him, feeling numb. They were going back – but _back_ wasn't any better than here, was worse –

No. No, stupid thought. _Back_ had only a million dead on his tab, not _4,459,820,000, dead in the name of his alternate self. Back was – all his fault, for not putting in safeguards that Hansen couldn't get around, because he knew how brilliant she was – for his arrogance, for whatever the hell he'd been thinking – _

_"Ready to go?" Steve asked expectantly, but underneath it there was concern, held in reserve, and worry, and – shit. _

_"Yeah," Tony said, and like some numb, AI-less, clockwork automaton, stepped through the blast door – it had begun to open while they'd been talking – into section B. Steve stepped through behind him, and then up beside him as they ventured forward; the lights ahead were out. Power problems, probably. ULTRON had automated repair units to take care of the generators; he'd dismissed Tony's help. Arrogance. _

_Like father, like son. _

_Steve stopped, abruptly – and held out a hand to stop Tony, too. Without it, he'd probably have just kept on going. "ULTRON?" he asked, voice raising in – suspicion? He was staring at the far end of the hall – into darkness that Tony, mere idiotic, fucking moronic mortal that he was, couldn't see through. But then he glanced back over his shoulder, and Tony, still feeling vaguely like he didn't have control of all his limbs, followed the action, to where the door behind them was sliding slowly closed. _

_"New safety protocols," ULTRON said shortly. "Agent Romanoff's report cannot yet be verified. I was carelessly lax in not implementing such measures before she pinpointed the inadequacies of this base's security."_

_Steve frowned. Derailed? Maybe. He looked indecisive, and strangely out of sorts, like he expected somebody to start firing at him. Did he have a thing against poorly-lit underground bases? He'd raided enough of them during WW2 – his file had been full of such missions. But when Natasha had killed power he'd been fine. _

_Tony was having a hard time caring. They were all small problems, beside the larger one. The largest. Extremis. _

_The door thoomed shut behind them. Fans whirred away overhead. _

_"ULTRON," Steve said. His voice was sharper this time. _

_"I cannot permit you to return to your world," ULTRON said quietly. _

Steve had stopped. His face was still, like he was trying to think through a difficult problem, and not coming up with a single answer that he liked. "ULTRON, open the door," he said, with such assurance that it almost could have been taken for granted that his command would be obeyed –

It wasn't. _"You will do more harm there. You are incapable of doing otherwise. The perils your world faces are the same as the ones that so nearly destroyed this one: they are brought about by humans. They cannot be overcome or avoided except by mechanical control."_

Like father. Like son.

Tony shook his head, scrunched his eyes open and closed. Problem at hand – focus. "Uh, maybe, before you do anything permanent, you should run a debugging check? 'Cuz, y'know, all these councils and things you've got setup, then, wham, bam, SHIELD spy going through your code – " his voice sounded strange to his own ears, careless – no, uncaring. Like nothing mattered. Maybe it didn't.

_"Agent Romanoff's modifications made no impact upon my code programming,"_ ULTRON said serenely. _"This is not a conclusion I have come to lightly. Again and again, humanity has decimated itself, a race with the power of adulthood and the maturity of an adolescent. If it is to survive long enough to learn from its mistakes, it must be placed under wiser guardianship."_

Steve jogged off into the darkness. Tony didn't call him back, because why the _hell_ would he, the locking bars were all on the other side of the A-B door and they'd never get it open. They probably wouldn't get the B-C door open either. "Tell me you're not going to kill her," Steve growled, his voice echoing back.

Tony deserved to die here. But Steve didn't. And Tony _couldn't_, not yet – he had to pay for his mistakes, he had to _fix _them, and he couldn't do that if he was dead.

"ULTRON? Tell me! I was right about her, she's a good person!"

The blast-door leading to the main arc reactor was also shut, but there were vents in the ceiling. Tony eyed them. _Not_ how Natasha got in and out – maybe for somebody the size of a cat. He hazily recalled reading the paper of some crack-pot a couple of years ago who was trying to invent a shrinking machine – well, he'd thought it crack-pot at the time, but then _magic. _Except the guy's math also sucked. But a working model sure would have been handy _now_.

_"Perhaps," _said ULTRON. _"Do not mistake me: I do not posit that humans are necessarily always incapable of the right decision,nor do I claim to be infallible. I value and will continue to value human input. But ultimate control of the fate of this planet, or any other, can no longer be allowed to rest in human hands." _

The locking bars could not have slid home – they were fully mechanical, relying upon outside leverage, which, with all of the armed suits still away, ULTRON didn't have. Tony went over and pressed his ear against the door – no internal grinding, and those things had been a pain in the ass to move earlier... not because they were _designed_ to be that damn difficult, but because they hadn't been maintained. Hadn't been used regularly until he'd gotten there, and had wanted manual access to the devices fabbed in section C. Pepper never left section A, after all. But it meant that ULTRON hadn't been maintaining them – because he wasn't _using_ them –

"God damn you," Steve hissed, so low that Tony barely heard it.

The design of the doors' magnetic locks swam hazily in his memory; Tony had only glanced at it, and only the once, when he'd been looking over the resources he had at his disposal in this facility – "Steve, come over here and help me push," he called. It'd be difficult for a regular guy, but with a super-soldier – and they'd be pushing _inward_ –

Steve jogged back out of the dark, breathing heavily, face red – had he been pushing against the opposite door? It didn't seem to have done anything – but then, maybe that door had different mechanical locks. "Try this one," Tony invited, measuring his hands along it. Steve – the greater strength – needed to be on the outer edge of it swinging, to get the greater moment –

_"I am afraid you will be unsuccessful in this endeavour,"_ ULTRON said calmly, before they could even begin straining. _"The magnetic locks remain firmly engaged."_

Tony scrabbled at his shirts, pulling them up. He had an AR on him – and surely he had some form of screwdriver. Beside him, Steve had slumped against the door, panting for breath, sweating profusely – "Steve?"

"Can't catch – my breath."

Because ULTRON hadn't been content to let them die of dehydration.

_"Carbon dioxide poisoning,"_ ULTRON said, almost softy, gently. _"I do not wish your ends to be painful. I will give you the dignity of privacy. Goodbye."_

"ULTRON?" Tony asked – shouted. "_ULTRON!" _

There was no reply.

Something like a shock snapped in the air as he reached for Steve, and between one breath and another, Steve slumped sideways against the ground. Tony followed him down, checking for breathing – no breathing – checking for a pulse – no pulse – _shit_ – he could start CPR but that would do nothing, he'd just be breathing _more_ poison into Steve's lungs, he needed to get that door open –

"ULTRON, you idiot, this won't kill me!" he yelled, his voice bouncing back to him from the smooth concrete all around, but nothing happened – nothing discernible. ULTRON didn't know – of course ULTRON didn't know, they'd never discussed the immortality curse in his presence, not when he was online – Tony hadn't wanted to discuss it at all. Or had there been more to it than that? Some instinctive realization that _this_ was always going to be the end, or some hidden prejudice?

There was a tiny part of him whimpering in terror, unable to _not _think about being trapped in here for all eternity with Steve's corpse.

_Nothing less than I deserve. _

"Steve – oh, god – " this was his fault. He'd fucked up so badly – this was his fault, he should have insisted ULTRON show him the code Natasha had changed – he never should have believed ULTRON at all – he'd been such an idiot. Created by a monster, he was a monster – a thousand universes and _this_ was the one where an AI got out live and sane? Odds. Odds –

He swore – useless, he was wasting time – and twisted out the AR. Magnetic locks – there had to be some way he could get around this – his fingers were fumbling, clumsy overtop of Steve's still body – _don't think corpse, not a corpse yet, supersoldier serum, irreversible damage won't set in until – _but he could build an EMP in his sleep: he set it against the door, set it off, watched the arc reactor flicker before sticking it back in his chest, not bothering to take the time to screw it firmly in – stood, dragged Steve out of the way. Started shoving.

The EMP might as well have done nothing. That, or the door was heavier than he'd thought, but, _shit_ –

How had he not seen this coming? _How_? In vain, he threw himself at the door, but he couldn't stop his brain, couldn't stop the thought that he – _him_, mentally ill, overly paranoid, had managed to keep secrets from an entire team of people who – apparently – cared about him, but he hadn't planned that an unknown AI on an unknown earth might betray him? No. There was no fucking way. There had to be something, he _must_ have built for this, he _knew_ he had, he must have prepared for some sort of – the code, his computer code, the failsafe message – that had been his one shot, so what had he done with it? He'd called it the Trifecta Virus when he'd been selling it to Natasha – three parts – code ran through his brain and yes _that_ was the phony job to fool SHIELD, _that_ was the hidden message to ULTRON – but what was _this_ – glyphs, symbols; more damn incomprehensible things he couldn't understand; he tried to scrawl through his memory faster.

Steve was still. Steve was dead, and Tony had no idea how long it had been. He planted his feet and shoved again, but it was useless. The EMP had gone off; it just hadn't worked. Too strong a magnetic lock, or it itself was shielded, which, probable, the door was three feet thick – there _had_ to be an answer – glyphs, _runes_, and he'd been building something else, the third layer of the virus had similarities elsewhere – his notes, why weren't his notes on this in English, or one of his personal short-hands, why the hell had he been learning Norse anyway – cross-referencing – searching for something, the way out he knew was there, knew and could do nothing about and Steve was going to die because he couldn't fucking _remember_ –

**Submodule TS001R activated.**

_Remember. _


	12. Chapter 12

_Remember._

**Submodule TS001R activated. **  
**Unpacking ...**

It had been his own voice whispering that word into his ear, said just in that way, with that same inflection, that same self-loathing.

A multiverse dying. _Steve_. Loki. Teenage Thor and Loki. Frost giants. A grey waste. A sinuous shape in the darkness, an impossible shape – biological systems going haywire, reason unknown. Yggdrasil. _Stars_. Explosion, the mothership, the nuke –

Tony collapsed to the floor beside Steve, limbs twitching helplessly, as incapable of action as a computer getting its operating system reinstalled. The images unpacked impossibly fast – and _there_ it was, finally, thoughts and expectations and _memory,_ emotional and logical cues tying together images, making _sense _of them. Nordic runes; multi-dimensional aliens who could see through time and space. A deal with a trio of dead fates, the knowledge that he could kill Loki and finish the cycle, see near-countless universes renewed. His own immortality, anchored across multiple realities – wherever Loki had been – now explained, and there was something there – but he couldn't consider it; he had no spare RAM.

**Module unpacked. **  
**Filechecking...**

What _was_ this? It seemed like Extremis, but now – with _logic_ returned to his memories – he didn't have to go trawling through sounds and images to know, immediately, that he had _never_ taken Extremis, never gone anywhere near the physical virus. It had been in Shenzhen; he'd been coding it from New York.

Shenzhen.

And now he knew what he'd done, the lines he'd crossed – and _why_.

_One million infected. _

Such a small number.

He breathed in, a deep, gasping breath that brought more poison to his lungs – not that it made any difference. The action was just reflex, from a system used to breathing, paused, now capable of resuming such action. He couldn't manage to turn his head – but with great slowness, he rolled his eyes to the side, and there was Steve – _too still. _The question of what this was, what had restored his memories, would have to wait.

Around them, the humming of the lights continued: cold, electric, constant. CO2, no doubt, continued to pour in through the vents, pushed along by fans.

But the first time he'd come here – to this complex – the first time he'd signalled to ULTRON... he'd expected to be betrayed. The paranoia hadn't let him embrace _anything_ without deep reservations. That was mere memory now, a feeling he could be faintly incredulous of; the sight of the Níðhöggr was an innocuous blank throughout all his restored memories. But what he'd done during that time...

The first layer of that virus had been an obscuring screen; the second designed to counter SHIELD's assumed-inevitable betrayal; but the third layer of the virus had been designed to counter _ULTRON's_ betrayal, making use of a past failure to do so. Months ago, during his early explorations with the possible applications of Asgardian 'magic', combined with good ol' human computer systems, he'd figured out how to use the 'delete' key: how to stop the technology of Earth or Asgard in its tracks, cause chaos at the smallest level, throw any artificial system into disorder. He'd thought he'd had the perfect weapon against Loki – send the virus to central Asgard, let it spread for a few months, then pull the trigger and pull their entire world apart – until he'd figured out the counter, the simple combination of runes that overrode it, rendering it impotent.

Against Asgardians – against Loki – it was just another failed idea: no doubt they would have discovered something so basic long ago. But against humans... hide the runes in the code, use them to cause it to spread, jumping gaps that a human virus wouldn't be able to bridge, because they were... _sticky_ was the best way to put it, really.

Containment on that project had been a bitch. Fortunately, the city-wide blackout that he'd caused before he'd figured out what he was doing had been blamed on an exploding transformer – mildly damaged in the invasion, but overlooked during cleanup – causing a cascading error.

**Filecheck complete. No errors found.**

A self-replicating virus hidden among code that looked like garbage: the third layer of his trifecta virus. Against Asgardians: useless. They would know the counter; it was probably built into everything they did at the most basic level.

But against a human-built AI...

**Shutting down... **  
**Goodbye.**

Control returned.

Tony lifted a shaky hand and sketched three-dimensional runes in the air. The first two were off; he grabbed his forearm with his other hand to stabilize it and started again. These were runes that didn't translate directly to any human understanding of Norse; these were the building blocks of the bifrost – and somewhere in that massive machine, he was sure, there had to be the counterspell.

But not here, where the base blocks of this virus had been fed to ULTRON and unleashed to spread across an unsuspecting world over a week ago. The last line of the runes fell into place – invisible in reality, but this was just topography: easy-peasy.

_("I chose the name myself.")_

"Sorry, kiddo," Tony whispered. His kid, not his kid – his hand didn't falter again, and the hum of fans and the lights... died.

Every light went dark, including the AR – surprising, for a moment, as memory insisted that he'd planned around that, ensured that the counter was embedded in every bit of tech he owned – until his brain sorted itself out again. This was an AR built by _ULTRON – _of course it was vulnerable.

And it meant that his ICG was no longer powered. Loki could spy on him at will.

_Loki_ had been able to spy on him anytime he went out for lunch, he reminded himself with a snarl, and used the fury handily provided by his returned memories to propel himself to his feet and shove against the door with all his might – the magnetic clamps were now certainly unlocked. His feet slid on the floor and he had to re-brace them, setting his shoulders and pushing at the outermost edge, groaning with the effort – and the door began to slide open.

Relief nearly made him weak; nearly made the door stop opening. He recalled rage, recalled Steve lying dead on the floor next to him – oh, god – and shoved harder, using the edge of the opening as a brace until he could fit a hand through – his head through – hand and head, and he just hoped he could get Steve's massive chest past. There were no lights on the other side – the deletion was wiping every programmed item out of existence, and everything that depended on them would be going down too.

Then, back to the floor, feeling about until he'd located exactly where Steve's torso was – while keeping a firm idea of the direction of the door in his head – Tony bent his knees – _lift with the legs, not with the back_, every safety-instruction video _ever_ chanted – and got both arms under Steve's, hauled him up and shoved him through – which did require some shoving; the gap wasn't very wide. He followed, nearly tripping forward into the continuing darkness; Steve's leg was in the way. Tony tugged it free, placed a hand on the door to re-orient himself, and then shuffled across it length-wise, using his feet instead of his eyes to ensure that no other bits of Steve were caught in it – and then he leaned himself against the door and, laboriously, pushed it forward until the gap was closed.

If this hallway filled with half as much CO2 as there must've been in the other, Steve would _still_ be in trouble.

Kneeling again, and nearly getting turned around in the darkness as he did so, he pulled Steve up, grabbing Steve's wrist with his own opposite hand, so that when he dragged him Steve's arms snugged up against his chest, made him easy to carry around without risking bashing his head against something – although it left Tony scurrying backward. For a long, terrible few seconds they were in the fairly open space by the door, with the kitchen, and he had visions of being forever lost in the dark, carrying around a decaying corpse – but then his right shoulder hit a wall (rather hard), and he adjusted – they were in the main hall, which meant he could measure his distance –

When the concrete wall gave way to glass Tony let them both down onto the floor. This was not so much a conscious decision as it was his legs giving out. He shoved Steve off, rolled him onto his back, tilted his head up, jaw down, and listened for breathing – no breathing, of course he wasn't, Tony gave him two quick breaths – no pulse, of course not. He started on chest compressions – useless, useless, less than a four percent chance of resuscitation by CPR alone, but Steve needed O2 in his tissues, _now_. How long had it taken Tony to get the damn door open? How long had he wasted lying there, twitching, while his brain rebooted? Steve didn't have a pulse, he needed an AED – or an arc reactor.

But if he used the counter-spell here, with nothing but a gesture to contain it, then it wouldn't just affect the AR.

ULTRON would have been wiped out of this place's immediate servers, but they were connected to larger systems, spread across the globe – systems that the virus was currently destroying, no doubt, but it wasn't instantaneous (or a lot more than a block would have gone dark, that one time). And if he woke this place up again, allowed physics here to resume at Earth normal, then ULTRON could return and –

There was no choice. If he waited, Steve was _definitely_ dead. Cursing, Tony began tracing runes again in the air. But before he could get through more than one, something like yellow static electricity jolted over Steve, a shimmering line from head-to-toe: magic. Fucking _magic_.

Steve took a great, shuddering breath.

"Oh thank god," Tony blurted, putting his fingers to Steve's neck to feel for a pulse. It was there, of course – he was _breathing_, that meant he had a pulse – but the strong, steady beat of it was reassuring nonetheless.

_Magic_.

His alternate self. He said he'd warded Steve. Warded him against cold, like Loki had done on Jotunheim? Against – just possibly – poisonous atmospheres?

Fucking _magic_. Tony didn't even care. Steve was alive. He let himself slump forward until his forehead was resting on Steve's broad chest. They could just... stay here a while. Safe, for the moment.

Or not. Steve's chest moved – more than just the regular up-and-down movement of normal breathing – and Tony lifted his head away as Steve sat up. "Tony?" he asked, sounding confused in the pitch black darkness.

"That'd be me," and then he coughed, because his voice had come out slightly giggly from relief, and that was just _not_ acceptable. Giggling – not a good look on anyone over age six, unless they'd had copious amounts of alcohol beforehand, and so had all the viewers. "You're okay. We're _great_."

They were kinda _fucked_, really, if extremis had gotten out, because he knew now that there was nothing in his memories waiting to tell him the solution. He'd never finished fixing it – he hadn't known _how_ to fix it. More testing had been needed...

And under the threat of pulled funding, Maya had gotten impatient again. Damn it. Or Tem. He should have realized that those two were conspiring together – but of course, the precautions he'd had against such an eventuality, JARVIS' instructions – those would have been wiped away in an instant by the Skynet Protocol.

JARVIS. Jesus.

"What happened?" Steve asked, still sounding confused, but fumbling his way into a standing position. Tony followed him, keeping one arm on the glass – no point in getting turned around. From A, there was only one way out, and all the doors would have the sliding locks and handles on _their_ side.

"I shut ULTRON down. Permanently. Lights are off, but we should be able to get out from here."

"You did? How?"

"Crazy paranoid, remember," Tony said shortly, because dwelling on killing people was always – well, not something he needed to be doing right now.

He'd killed Lu and Parks, in trusting their failsafe device releases to JARVIS, in trusting that JARVIS would _be there_. That was on him.

A million people infected by extremis was on him. SI was on him.

"You'd do it all again, too, wouldn't you?" Steve asked – but not the Steve in front of him, fumbling for the glass wall, fingers ghosting over Tony to get there. This one sounded like he stood behind Tony – but he wasn't really there. Tony winced, unseen. "Tony..."

_I thought you'd gone away,_ he thought viciously, and then had to fight back a stab of fear. He knew what had been driving him crazy – that impossible, terrible dragon... but that was gone, not downloaded again into his brain when extremis – if it _was_ extremis – had done... whatever it had done. Or he'd _thought_ that the Níðhöggr had been responsible, but if he was still hallucinating Steve...

"Don't worry," Steve said quietly, while his flesh-and-blood, actually real counterpart said, "We should get to the surface, then. If all the vents have been shut off..."

"You're almost home, and I'm almost done. I just wish I could convince you to re-consider."

_Reconsider what?_ Tony thought at him, but he didn't speak again, so Tony sighed and instead said, "Yeah. Though I've got some stuff in the workshop that we're gonna need topside – at least, if we don't want to freeze to death." He paused. "Well, _I _probably wouldn't freeze to death."

He could hear Steve frowning as he said, "We should get Pepper's flashlight."

Right. That would be a smart idea.

Even with the flashlight, figuring out where his shit was without ULTRON's help was a pain in the ass – but he did need _some_ tools. Among other things, he needed something he could use to scratch runes onto the quinjet, unless they wanted to _walk_ all the way to New Orleans. Searching was a pain; he tripped over things, cursing a lot, but at least Steve didn't bother asking questions. Instead he started talking about the Dodgers moving to LA, which was... odd, but also somehow reassuring. Tony didn't like dark underground bunkers anymore than – oh. Apparently, anymore than Steve.

"Okay," Tony said finally, when he was pretty sure he had everything he wanted. "Let's go. And hope like hell ULTRON wasn't lying about that quinjet being ready."

"You want to put yourself back in his hands?" Steve sounded doubtful.

"He'll still be shut down," Tony assured him. "So long as I rip out anything he could use to download himself back into the jet – navigation, communications..." That was what most of the tools were for.

"And we can get there from overhead?" They reached the blast door – closed, of course. But the slide-locks _were_ on this side, hallelujah.

"If we can – " he shuffled aside as Steve reached for the first handle and – not ungently – pushed him out of the way. " – we get past this, we can get overtop... E's got less security, it's probably how Natasha got in."

"She'll be okay, right?" Steve asked, with barely any strain in his voice – fully recovered supersoldier-serum, look at 'im go – as he pulled aside the manual slide-locks, then bent his back to shove the door open. It took him far less time than Tony remembered it taking _him_ – although that could have been adrenaline playing tricks with his brain.

"The failsafe was programmed by ULTRON. It'll shut down, too."

"But it doesn't have any reception," Steve said, his voice echoing into the deeper black beyond. Tony climbed through after him, and shone the flashlight down the hallway. It reminded him vaguely of another long, dark passageway – but that time, he'd been alone, until nearly the very end.

"It does for this," Tony assured him.

"Tony – "

"I remembered."

The words were blurted out without thought, and he found himself closing his eyes in silent horror at himself.

"You what?"

"I remembered. What happened. What A- uh, Anthony took away – I remembered it. Without the crazy brain-breaking parts," he added, because, well, shit, "but all the fun adventures. And not so fun adventures, and also, the part where I spent a couple months learning the basics of Asgardian science, magic, whatever, or, not the basics because I swear, hand to god, I still have no idea _how_ it works, but I can apply it. And I killed ULTRON with it, and I _know _what I've done and why and – can we have this conversation when I can actually see your face?" Not that he entirely couldn't see it, flashlight, but unless he was shining it _right at_ Steve's face – and, yeah, no – then Steve was mostly just a looming dark shadow.

"I – how – okay," Steve said, sounding just as taken-aback, which, at least, win for the word-vomit. "Okay."

They made the rest of the trek out of the dark in silence.

* * *

Tony remembered.

Steve wondered if Tony was more pissed now that Steve had let Anthony take that away from him, or less. Now... at least he _could_ know, although his rambling, scattered speech had been half-way to terrifying. He talked about _magic_ – he said he'd knew what he'd done. _Why_.

All the answers that Steve had searched for, resigned himself to losing, searched for again, and then thought were simply the product of a mind gone mad... but, apparently not lacking reason – or at least claiming not – Tony had still claimed that there was a _why_, and suddenly, on the cusp of hearing the answer, Steve wasn't sure he _wanted _to know.

Because if it was a terrible _why_... then people were still dead, and it would be for nothing.

Outside, the air was freezing, but the serum kept Steve warm enough. Tony, in shirt-sleeves, stumbled after a few minutes, but fortunately they only had a quarter-mile to go before they reached the concrete access port that Natasha must have used to get into the place – _must_ have, because it bore signs of recent tampering. Fortunately, that made it all the easier for Steve to haul it open, and then they climbed back down into the dark again – which at least was warm.

There was, indeed, a quinjet on the pad, beneath the launch doors hidden beneath prairie snow. Tony held the flashlight again while Steve climbed up on top of the jet so that he could work a crowbar – one of Tony's chosen tools – into the doors and pry them apart far enough to let some of the sunshine in, and _oxygen_. If it also let in the cold... well, Steve would put up with that, if it meant that he wasn't going to suffocate again.

He was getting tired of underground bases.

"Alright, come to papa," Tony crooned to the jet, and then all of a sudden he was yanking out half of its insides.

"Are you sure – " Steve half got out the question, and Tony popped himself up – he was lying on his back beneath the pilot's console, body contorted so that he could fit around the chair – and gave him a _look_.

Steve held up his hands in a gesture of peace, and even refrained from asking questions when, two hours later, Tony went around the outside of the entire jet, drawing Nordic-looking runes on every surface with a nail, before coming back inside and waving his hands in incomprehensible gestures. Steve couldn't deny the result, either; the jet hummed to life immediately.

Tony hadn't been kidding about the 'magic' part. But that just raised even _more_ questions.

"Right, go reel those doors back the rest of the way before you pass out from the fumes," Tony ordered, and Steve bit his tongue and went.

But when they were finally in the air - Tony was flying, at his own insistence – "You don't know what I had to pull out, Cap – " he wasn't inclined to wait any longer.

"So. You remember."

"Uh-huh."

This was off to a great start. Steve crossed his arms over his chest – and _could_, because he wasn't the pilot. Then he uncrossed them, because actually, intimidating... wasn't what he was going for.

Plaintive wasn't exactly what he was going for either, but it was how his voice sounded when he said, "So what happened?"

"I have to be careful what I say aloud." Tony's voice was careful, rehearsed; he must've been preparing this in his head while working on the jet. "The cloaking device I designed – well, it's not powered at the moment, anyway, so I hope, uh, Anthony's wards work like it – it covered about a thousand cubic meters in passive-mode. But, hey, guy was pretty sure..." he shrugged, moving his shoulders while keeping his hands immobile on the controls, holding them steady.

"Somebody's spying on you?"

"Maybe, but if they are, it's with magic. Sufficiently advanced technology. They can look in a lot of places. The ICG prevents it – or at least it's designed to – but only for EMR – visual, infrared, that sort of thing. Sound works differently."

Steve recalled, from what felt like a lifetime ago, Thor talking about '_concussive phenomena'_ – "Like the Allspeech?"

"Exactly. So you get that I'm not keen to name names and draw eyes – it'd be like shouting their name in the middle of a crowd, it summons attention to the speaker. And if somebody's already paying attention _despite_ the ICG, then they might overhear whatever I have to say. I could write it down for you instead, but..." he gestured with his chin. "Flying."

"Okay..." Steve said slowly, trying to take this in. Was it just the same paranoia from before, resurfacing because of the memories? It was enough to make his skin prickle uncomfortably, though. "But you can tell me what they already know you know? _They _being...?"

"Same guy you thought it was earlier. Just a different version of him. And no, not the one from our Earth, either."

So.

Tony had gone world-wandering before this. If it had been the Chitauri portal – what had he seen on the other side? _Stars, _yet not stars – something trying to gain a foothold.

"And if I tell you... I'm kinda scared he might try to stop you, too. Just like he stopped JARVIS. Or I think it was him, anyway. Some things are adding up." Tony didn't take his eyes off of the viewscreen.

"I think," Steve said deliberately, "that's my choice to make."

Tony shot him a quick glance, and then huffed and smirked – although not very convincingly. Maybe it was the lack of beard. "Always is."

But despite those words, they flew on in silence for a few minutes longer until Steve finally prompted, "Well?"

"I didn't make it _directly_ back through the portal back in May. It shut too soon – it closed around me while I was falling though it. _He_ cast a spell, something like a dragnet, and it snagged me and brought me to his world. See, it turns out that there's certain ways worlds fall out, at least when him and his people are involved – cycles that they're stuck in. The world ends, it resumes – " Steve had the feeling that Tony would be making large gestures, if he hadn't had his hands practically glued to the controls. The _lack_ of gestures, strangely, gave his words a peculiar emphasis. " – and he dies, which, he didn't like. But he needed somebody from _outside_ his particular world to break the cycle, and I got elected as the lucky guy.

"So. That happened. He kicked off the end of the world early and changed shit enough that he got away – because of me, because he'd dragged me in. And it didn't start again, nothing repaired itself, because he'd broken the cycle, in not-dying. But, well, they had the Bridge there – broken, of course – but, anyway, I'd been cursed, and everything else was dead, so I had nothing better to do. Spent a couple months fixing it, and got myself back home." He shrugged. Story over.

Like _hell_, Steve thought. There was clearly a lot that Tony wasn't saying – pain visible in the way that he held his face immobile, refusing to show anything other than flippant disregard.

"But you came out of the portal – I'd have sworn you fell through just before it shut," Steve pointed out.

"Time ran differently there." Tony didn't – _quite _– shudder. "It was... strange. I'd look up and things would be different, it was just... it was strange. But the curse seems to be real enough, so, y'know."

"You were testing it," Steve realized. Tony glanced over at him questioningly. "We managed to restore some fragments of your data, even despite the Skynet protocol." Like the video of Tony with lines carved into his skin... "Couldn't figure out what you thought you were doing."

"Yeah, it has its limitations," Tony agreed. "Most drugs still work on me. No super-healing – that's all you, my friend. But immunity to hypercapnia, that's a plus. No need to sleep, though I can if I want to – which I usually don't. No need to eat, drink." He sighed. "No ability to grow a beard. If you count that and the no-sleeping thing, it's like MIT all over again but with less illegal substances."

Steve ignored that, and focused on controlling his voice. "So." That wasn't quite as even as he'd hoped for; he cleared his throat and tried again. "You came back. And started doing... stuff."

Tony flinched.

"Like getting Hansen out of jail, and the others." He paused. "Was there anywhere other than Shenzhen?"

"No," Tony said immediately. Was he telling the truth? "Pulling off Shenzhen was hard enough. But I needed a place – I couldn't trust SHIELD, it had too many problems already... you know that Selvig was compromised for months before the whole shebang? That was why Clint was watching him in the first place – why he was in the line of fire. That's the thing about involving more people – there's too many leaks, they're all uncontrolled – " he visibly reined himself in. "And let's remember the paranoia. A bit justified, but... yeah, that didn't help."

"So why'd you need the other scientists?"

Tony smiled ruefully. "Because – and believe me, this pains me to say – I couldn't do it all by myself."

"And what were you trying to do? Or can you not say that," and Steve couldn't quite make that last sentence not sarcastic.

"Roughly, two things – build a bridge that would let me hunt him down, and build something _else_ that would let me kill him. I had various plans for the latter. Extremis... well, it was _supposed_ to be one of the less destructive versions." And look at how well that had worked out. But if it were true –

"So that night in the gym, when you told me that you invented ways to destroy the world..." Steve closed his eyes.

"Easiest way to take out a target," Tony finished bleakly. "If you don't give a shit about what happens to everything else around. At least extremis could be more specific."

"You could just have taken the Hulk with you," Steve said, feeling quietly furious – but it was like at a great distance. The core of him felt numb. Frozen.

Terrible reasons. And yet he'd had to know.

"_He_ wasn't like the one you met," Tony shook his head. "I've fought him. I tried my best to kill him, back there, and so did – other people. But he was faster, stronger – out of his tree, all the same, but it made _that_ version of him more dangerous – I _wish_ I could just take the Hulk." He laughed, bitterly.

"There are over a million people infected with Extremis. I had to kill some of them."

"I know."

"And this was all just for revenge?" So many people dead...

"No," Tony denied, as immediately and firmly as he'd denied having any facilities besides Shenzhen. Was either statement true? "No. Steve – I fucked up with Shenzhen, okay? I _fucked up_, I let the paranoia get to me, but – shit, there was no way to see _this_ coming." This time his laugher was tinged with disbelief. "I thought – all those scientists, locked up, wasting their time and everybody else's – they agreed to work for me, they could do some good. If he's out there – he's psychotic, Steve, you have no idea, and he's got power way beyond anything we've got. He decides to start playing games again – and I guarantee you, he's already started – he glances our way, we're _gone_. He has to be stopped."

"So you went over everyone's head," Steve said, but he hated it, because he was seeing where Tony was coming from, he could see the logic –

But he'd kept it secret from everyone else, whereas if he'd had just a _bit_ more trust – if he'd confided in a single other human being – the Shenzhen would never have happened. They'd have known beforehand what they were walking into; they have acted before Borgijin and Hansen. If, even, Borgijin and Hansen had still been involved – surely, between the pair of them, they could have convinced Fury to go along with the secrecy. Fury was hardly one to object to keeping secrets from the rest of SHIELD. And with a few _other _scientists, backed by those resources...

He backed his thoughts up, paused. _Surely, between the two of us..._ was that all it was? Was he just jealous? Hurt because despite everything they'd shared – Tony had kept this, this most important thing, secret?

Steve shook his head. Shenzhen was real; Shenzhen had to be reckoned for. But he was too close to see exactly how, maybe.

"When we get back, I'll still need to do this." Tony sounded resigned. "I can't _not. _But if SI's gone under then Fury'll have to be in on it. God knows how that'll sort out."

"We could try asking somebody like Anthony," Steve suggested, but it was half-hearted. It had been a week and Anthony still hadn't returned – so either there was a _massive _time-slip, or something else was going on. He'd promised just to mention the problem to Odin – had he, too, instead decided that it was his responsibility to deal with this problem?

...or was the problem larger than that? Tony seemed to think it stemmed from a single world, but Anthony had said the curse was tied into many. Was this at all related to the crises going on in that other world, where they'd gone through the Infinite Embassy? Some larger problem, across _many_ worlds?

It was hard to credence. Loki... at the end of the day, Loki was _petty_. He had an army, and he'd had a fancy glowing stick, but... Coulson, with his dying words, had put it best. Loki lacked conviction.

Then again, it sounded like the Loki that _Tony_ was talking about thought a bit larger – on the same scale that Steve could see the beings of the Skyfathers' Council thinking. Destroying an entire world before its time to selfishly extend his own life – so maybe it _was_ connected.

What should he do? Try to go after Anthony – somehow? Stay out of it? Hercules had seemed to think it wasn't any mortal's business – but Steve had never been one to play by _those_ rules. But if he was trying to prioritize things – what about _this_ world? Was it possible to even try to send enough aid to make a dent? Didn't they have an obligation to do so?

What about those other worlds that he'd stopped in, when Anthony had first picked him up? At least one seemed like it had been nuked – what if there were people still living there? The thought of the sheer _number_ of worlds out there – it was exhausting.

And he was exhausted. His stomach was empty – he'd not gotten the chance to eat, and now his metabolism was protesting.

"Shenzhen was my mistake. I'll fix it first," Tony said quietly. "But then I have to go after him. I _have_ to, Steve. You can't – you don't know how many people he killed."

Fury would probably want to try Tony in a secret trial. Or maybe he wouldn't. He was pretty pragmatic about recruiting Natasha, after all – and Steve had read her file. Maybe he'd think Tony could be equally useful – if far more dangerous to humanity at large. Natasha's good intentions didn't lead to unstoppable technoplagues.

But if anyone _could_ stop extremis, it was Tony. And then – if there was no one else who could stop that other Loki... who, by setting all this in motion, by grabbing Tony away in the first place, surely deserved some large share of blame...

"You're not doing it alone this time," he said, tired, but feeling a swell of determination rising beneath the words. "Promise me. You don't try to do this alone."

Tony tilted his head in what could be called, if viewed in a biased light, a nod. "I can agree with that."

...

They touched down in Kisatchie National Forest at twilight. Tony, unbuckling himself from the pilot's seat – and the buckles _had_ been needed; since Steve had _thought_ Tony was a pretty good pilot, he was left wondering what _else_ Tony had ripped out of the quinjet's systems – took a long look at Steve, and then went rummaging in the first aid supplies, coming up with grey wool blanket that he tossed at Steve.

"You stand out a bit," he pointed out when Steve raised one eyebrow.

Steve flushed. He sometimes forgot about that. The scale mail wasn't as _bright_ a blue as his official uniform back home, but it was still _scale mail_ – it'd stand out, even without the other aspects of the suit. He draped the blanket about himself, and Tony grabbed some safety pins to hold it in place, like a rough poncho. He couldn't really do anything about the red boots, though.

"Louisiana's a swamp anyway, just step in a couple of mud puddles," Tony suggested, leading the way out of the jet. The shoved the bay doors closed behind them, and its stealthing technology left it all but invisible in the trees.

"Don't forget where we parked," Steve said – a bad attempt at humour, but it made Tony snort.

Despite Tony's words, the forest was not actually a swamp. It _had_ rained recently, though, so it wasn't long before the brightest of the red was covered over. The air was uncomfortably warm, and Steve was reminded of the time he'd been in Houston with the USO. The Deep South didn't get _cold_ like New York did – he'd forgotten that. It was still winter, so at least it wasn't _stifling_, but the blanket was too much; within a few minutes he was on the verge of suggesting they head back so he could just strip off his uniform jacket and go out in an undershirt. Only the fact that Tony was likewise suffering – wearing a heavy jacket to cover the light of the arc reactor – kept him from doing so.

He wasn't overly fond of the idea of suffering for solidarity, but there was _something_ to be said for it.

The ramshackle collection of bright lights that they'd seen from above resolved themselves into a sort of half-fort, half-tent-city, the trees – obviously put to use – having been cleared for a good half-mile around it. It even had rough walls, of a sort – although various tents were pitched outside of them, the population having outgrown the initial confines – and a gate with two posted guards.

"Y'all're cuttin' it close," one of the two men drawled as Steve and Tony approached – drawled with such an accent that it took Steve a moment to decipher it. "Sun's near down, nobody in or out after that."

"We've got dates inside," Steve replied with a friendly grin, and the closest approximation of a Texan accent that he could remember from Susie – one of the USO girls who slipped into it when she got drunk, which was sadly more often than the manager had been willing to tolerate in the end.

They were squinted at by lantern-light – _lantern_-light, actual candle-flame lanterns. It was slightly surreal, like they'd stepped into a western. "Y'all up from Texas? We need your names for the ledger."

"New Mexico," Steve shrugged. He was pretty sure he'd been to New Mexico at some point. It got them whistles, though. "Steve Barnes and Anthony Edwards."

"Far ways to come. Well, you don't need an inn proper here, if you don't mind a bit of rain, but there's the Cajun Crew if you want it, and if you can pay for it." He eyed Steve's poncho like he was assessing, and Tony's jacket with a rather more skeptical eye.

Tony flashed a quick smile and led the way between them, still not having said anything – which seemed unusual. Was he afraid of being recognized? Without his beard, he looked _different_ – if anything, it was _Steve _who ran the risk, but the guards let them pass without any trouble, one flipping open a large binder to pencil them in.

"You do this sort of thing before?" Tony asked him in an undertone as they walked down dirt road streets, filled with plenty of people chatting, talking – a lot of them drunk stupid.

"Sure, all over France."

Conversations reached his ears, almost all of them concerned with one thing – the sudden, complete collapse of technology.

"I always knew it," one glum, elderly gentleman was saying to his conversation partner. "First comes the fire from heaven, and then all the evils of the technological age'll be purged from the earth..."

"...worried about the water filters, but Sal says they'll still work just fine without the electronic readers. We'll just have to be diligent about changing 'em out."

"...Candles are fine for now, but we don't have enough to be lasting all year! We need the electric grid back..."

"I was worried about my Da's pacemaker, but it's ticking along just fine. And the backup generators still run – we can hook up the grid to that. It's just a problem with the power plant."

"It's not _just_ that, don't be stupid. Haven't you seen the library? All the computers are toast, not one of 'em will turn on, not with the generators, nor anything."

"Well, we won't know until we get word back..."

How far had ULTRON infiltrated everything? Apparently, just short of too far – but if people with pacemakers were holding out, then there was some limit.

"They'll survive," Steve said into Tony's ear, and the other man relaxed slightly.

"It's what we do best," said a voice on his other side, and Steve jumped slightly as he turned to the woman who had snuck up on him – dirty and smudged enough that nobody was bothering to look at her. But although her face seemed... _different_, in a way that Steve couldn't quite pinpoint, when she blinked he suddenly became certain that it was Natasha.

"Fancy seeing you here, doll," Tony drawled, leaning around Steve.

She smiled at them, a genuine look of flushed pleasure. "Come on. I'll buy you a round."

...

"So ULTRON is gone," she said, after they – well, _Steve_; Tony had shoved his portion over wordlessly, and Natasha, with a raised eyebrow, had followed suite – had finished devouring the meal. It was _hot_ food, burning his tongue, but it filled his stomach wonderfully.

"It's what you hired me to accomplish," Tony shrugged. "Not that you ever paid me."

"_Banner_ hired you, to be a distraction," Natasha corrected. She did sound impressed, leaning over the rough wooden furniture of the restaurant/inn/tavern, both hands wrapped around a hot mug of some unidentifiable but equally spicy drink. "Which you pulled off admirably. But even he didn't think you could actually just... shut him down."

Tony shrugged again – unusually close-mouthed. They stared at each other for a long moment, something unreadable passing between them, until Steve accidentally swallowed a bit of shell with his shrimp and nearly choked.

"Easy," Natasha scolded, pounding him on the back.

"You're fine, by the way," Tony said, off-handedly. "I mean it. It fried everything. You can have that," he twirled his index finger in the vague direction of her neck, "removed anytime, it's just... dead metal."

"A relief," she said, and held up her mug in toast – then pulled a USB drive from somewhere that Steve's eyes couldn't catch, and laid it on the table. "Does that mean this is dead, too?"

Tony picked it up and peered at it, flicking it open and closed. "Was it connected anytime after you seeded the virus I gave you into their systems?"

"No."

"Then no, it's great. What's on it?" He tilted his head to one side, and in the dim light, Steve was struck by how much his manner resembled that of the small black cat lying over on the mantle, watching the crowd. Except that its fur was at least groomed, and Tony's looked like he'd been combing it with nothing but his fingers for the last couple of days – which, to be fair, he had.

"Compliments from Maria Hill – and an ultra-compressed copy of all the system data; it was one of the backups. That includes the portal data, and exactly how we got you here." She smiled. "Somebody had to set that right."

Tony did grin, then. "Why thank you, A – ah, Rushman."

"You're quite welcome, Edwards. Of course, if everything ULTRON touched is dead... how _are_ you going to get home?" She looked concerned as she glanced between the pair of them.

"I can reactivate it," Tony shrugged. "It's not... definitively dead. It just won't work, until it's countered. Once it is, then ULTRON, if some part of him is still out there, can download himself into it again. It'll probably take a couple of months before it gets every last part of him, but since the virus was keyed to him..."

Natasha nodded, business-like. "How does it need to be countered?"

"Magic," Tony said sourly.

Natasha held his gaze for a long moment, slowly beginning to frown. "You're not kidding."

"He's really not," Steve said, around a mouthful of some sort of vegetable that was completely overwhelmed by the spicy sauce it had been swimming in.

"Couple of months, we can come back here, set it to rights," Tony shrugged. "There's really nobody else..."

"There's Pepper," Steve said quietly. He hadn't thought of her before – because she'd already been gone when ULTRON had so suddenly, completely derailed. Would she be okay, without ULTRON or his suits to guard her anymore? Surely she'd have arrived at her destination long before, but...

"Would she believe us about ULTRON? She already thought I was crazy."

"So did I," Natasha put in with a raised eyebrow. "Although at least you're not talking to thin air anymore."

Tony waved a hand. "It was a thing. It's now not a thing. End of story." Natasha accepted this with a gracious nod.

"Pepper could be in trouble, though," Steve said, earning himself a blank look from Tony – and then slowly dawning comprehension. Pepper wouldn't have the protection of the armours anymore.

"I might have a solution to that."

It took Steve a moment to process Natasha's words. "Really?"

"Third chances and all." She smiled, as before – it looked good on her, Steve thought. She looked... brighter. Lighter. "This is my world. My ledger is here; this is where my debt must be paid. And Pepper Potts... there's a woman who has changed the world for the better, no matter what her patrons have done. It'd be a crime not to let her keep doing so."

"If I give you the codes, will you know when to use them?" Tony asked, watching her carefully.

"A couple of months, you said? I'll make it a year."

"People will suffer without power, in that time," Steve said.

"They'll rebuild. This time without ULTRON controlling everything." She fixed him with a fierce look. "From what he said at the end, do you really think it better to put him back?"

"No." Steve sighed. "We'll send what aid we can." If Fury _let_ them... and if they weren't in the middle of a zombie apocalypse themselves. It had been one million nearly two weeks ago – what was it now?

Tony leaned forward, one hand dragging over the grain of the table. "I'll give 'em to you backward, then – if I give them to you forward, it'll trigger." His mouth twisted. "_Magic_. Anyway. It's a mental thing as much as anything – ridiculous, I know, and I could start explaining extra-dimensional math but that's not the point. So, starting with the last one, here's what you need to draw – and to think..."

* * *

"They'll rebuild," Tony repeated back what Steve had said in Kisatchie. He kept his eyes glued to the screen. Any typos would slow him down, and he was _so close_ to being done. "You said that yourself."

Even knowing what was there, he very thoroughly wanted to go home.

At the edge of his vision, Steve was busy scraping runes into place around the edge of the room – containment, as it were, for the 'on' switch. Tony had scrawled them over the sides of the computers – not hard – before he'd booted them up, but the portal device would require quite a bit more space, so Steve was copying them out into the concrete with a chisel, a glowing yellow blur from Anthony's wards. Even in the bunker that SHIELD had cooked up, New Orleans was _not_ a healthy place to be. In their own world, SI had had a significant charitable presence here ever since Katrina. It was just as well that Natasha wasn't coming back and stewing in this for any longer than she already had – even if Steve seemed to be taken aback at her decision. He'd been quiet all last night, and then remained quiet still on the short flight to SHIELD – Banner's, really, Tony supposed – bunker.

"I know they will. I just wonder about... other worlds. There're a lot of them out there." The chisel tapped away some more, and then, sounding satisfied, Steve announced, "Done."

"With perfect timing." Tony stood and stretched – even though he didn't need to; perks of the curse, after all – cracking his knuckles with a sigh of pleasure. "I'm done here, too. Come help me mount this thing."

To be fair, it was more like he stood back and directed Steve how to position the heavy apparatus so that it could be easily connected to Banner's set-up, which was over at the side of the room. Alone, Banner's device was the perfected bridging machine: capable of sending a single person to another reality, without a prohibitive energy build-up, and without mucking up things in side realities. Tony's addition – calibrated with the data from Hill's thumb-drive – would turn it into something resembling the original device that SHIELD had used to drag him here – and to drag all his other counterparts out of their own worlds, as well. He couldn't deny that he felt vaguely smug that, of all of them, he'd be the one to figure it out and _fix _it first – even if he _did_ have an advantage in doing so.

When it was properly situated and Tony had wiggled his fingers about sufficiently – if he kept this up, he was going to have to get a top-hat and a black cape, seriously, it was a bit ridiculous – he pulled the arc reactor (now glowing again) out from his chest, disconnecting it from both himself and the ICG, which he pocketed. The first connection instead went to power the portal generator, and the second he attached to the _other_ device he'd built: a timer to trigger an overload in the reactor, the countdown waiting to start. This sort of tech... it wasn't a good idea to leave it laying around, even in a place as lethal as New Orleans.

"We'll rebuild on the other side, too," Steve said firmly, watching him.

Tony shot him a smile. "I know we will. Nonagenarians first." Even if the bridge had been designed to take more than one person, they couldn't run it on both the looped and non-looped settings at once – and _he_ was the one who knew his way around the settings and calibrations.

"Be right behind me," Steve warned him.

"I will," he promised, rolling his eyes. The lasers began to whine with power; he double-checked the coordinates he'd entered. 40.83˚,-72.94 – as close to the cemetery where he'd been buried as the bridge could manage with some accuracy (while hopefully avoiding dropping him in the Hudson), which was the other reason Steve was going first. The loop generator wouldn't work without the biological key to lock onto – in this case, Tony – but that meant that when he hit the switch, he was going to wind up in a coffin.

At least he was in no danger of suffocating to death. Still, he wasn't looking forward to it. Hopefully, Steve would manage to get him exhumed promptly – because if you couldn't trust Captain America when he told you to dig up a dead body, then who _could_ you trust?

Steve took his place in the middle of the room; the whine of the lasers powering up had been joined by the lower-pitched thrum of mechanical parts moving into position. Tony pulled the goggles down over his eyes, and grinned at Steve – who, unabashedly, grinned back.

Despite all the circumstances, what they were doing, ripping open space and time? _Very _cool, always would be. Tony hit the trigger. The air space around Steve ripped open, a shade of blue filtered out by his goggles so that it looked black, energy crawling around him in a sphere before winking out soundlessly, cleanly – a far cry from the roiling, untamed energy that SHIELD had recorded from Loki's trip to Earth. It left no trace of Steve behind, no damage to the concrete beneath them – nothing to say that he'd ever been there.

_Step one down._ And how much of a bastard was he to be thinking that, even now?

* * *

The world fell out from under Steve – and then his feet hit the ground, and the frigid air of late November in New York hit the rest of him. Around him, people were exclaiming – people were out on the streets, that was good. He took one look around him, glancing for a street sign –

" – not another alien invasion – "

"Is that _Captain America?"_

"Excuse me," a wide-eyed lady said to him, "but are you – "

"Sorry, ma'am," Amsterdam Ave and 155th, he wasn't too far off, "I gotta go."

West, he needed to go west: he cut through the park at a sprint, got to the cemetery, jumped the fence, and jogged through the rows. Tony had gotten a large plot, of course – as such things were done – so he'd be... the guards in SHIELD uniforms standing around the enormous, empty hole in the ground brought Steve up short.

"What happened here?" he demanded, striding over to the nearest – whose eyes were like saucers. Another just behind her was already on his radio, but Steve didn't very well _care_ –

"There's been riots," the guard told him. "Are you – Captain Rogers?"

"Where's Tony Stark's body been taken?"

Another guard shoved a radio and an earpiece at him; irritated, he put it in, in time to hear Fury demanding, _"Captain Rogers?"_

"Sir – "

_"Where the _hell_ have you – "_

"You have Tony's body?" Steve cut him off, panic seizing up his ability to be polite. What if they'd decided to cremate him? What if he bridged back and woke up in a furnace? "You have to make sure he can get out – it's not him, it's a him from another reality, that's where I've been – "

"I don't think I have clearance to hear this," muttered the guard whom he'd accosted.

_"You're telling me you've been in another _reality_?"_

"Sir, there were aliens six months ago, I don't think it's that impossible," he countered. "Yes, I am. And so was Tony, except for longer – it wasn't _him_, and he fixed it so he'd switch back but when he does, he'll switch with the body – "

A chopper was drawing nearer, at speed; the roar of the blades drowning him out. He looked up, squinting through the wind to see Sitwell leaning out the open door. "Captain Rogers," he called loudly. "You're wanted upstairs."

* * *

Tony took a minute to admire his work as the machine powered down. Well, it was a collaboration, really – but that was all of science. When the humming had shifted down an octave, he pulled up his goggles and knelt to add the connections to the loop-generator adaptor, screwing the necessary cables into place. He minimized the first program – actually the one that he'd written last – and opened up the second, which was based off of Banner's original programming. Time to fix this fuck-up once and for all. Steve had been gone for all of three minutes – not much time to dig up a grave – but this was _Captain America_; no doubt he'd be able to commandeer a backhoe in short order.

And Tony had promised. Steve hadn't condemned him – Steve had been willing to listen – he needed to keep that promise.

The door to the room blew off its hinges.

Tony threw himself backward and barely avoided being flattened by it. The loop-generator apparatus was not so lucky; it went toppling over, its more delicate parts crushed beneath its own unbalanced weight and the weight of the flying steel door. He stood, cautiously, all the hair on the back of his neck standing on end – and the hair on top of his head, and the hair on his arms; static electricity was thick in the air, radiating from the blond giant that filled the doorway.

Tony's eyes widened, and then Mjolnir slammed into his midriff, tossing him to the back wall – a gentle nudge, really, compared to what the hammer could do; if the pain when he fell to the floor was any indication, then he was still in one piece. _Something_ had broken, ruptured, in a way it wasn't supposed to – maybe a broken spine, oh, god, signals were misfiring, his left leg twitching in and out of agony, that wasn't good.

Blearily, Tony rolled over, trying to sort out the tangle of his limbs; it was a strangely difficult task. Multiple Thors wavered in his vision for a moment – leaning over him? Yes, he realized a moment later, exactly that – Mjolnir dropped down onto his chest, not with the force of a blow behind it but just to pin him, but _ohgod_ it was heavy – he could feel the arc reactor housing creaking beneath its weight, not to mention his _ribs_. The housing, only – because the arc reactor was halfway across the room and so was the cloaking device. The cloaking device, which he hadn't even been thinking of, because it had been unpowered since yesterday.

But until three minutes ago he'd been with Steve, who was wrapped in wards built by a genuine sorcerer. Of course. Tony could have smacked himself, if Thor hadn't done a much better job of that already.

But _Thor_ – why _Thor, _had he joined forces with Loki?

The metal rods that supported the reactor casing were bending and he tried to gasp in agony, but couldn't draw breath, and then – _snap, crackle, pop,_ he thought, and almost giggled, too much hysterical terror and _pain_ – there went two ribs on his left side – _snap_ – oh, make that three –

"Anthony Edward Stark," Thor murmured, kneeling over him. "I find you guilty of regicide."

Oh. Not here on _Loki's_ behalf.

"Thor," Tony gasped, trying to draw enough air to attempt reason, to attempt _something_ – but what the hell could he _say_? He was guilty. He'd killed Jane, just like he'd killed so many others – in a moment of complete insanity, caught in paranoid delusions... and in this particular case, while wearing a lethal suit armour that he'd had no business piloting, not in such a put one giant hand on top of Mjolnir and pressed down, and all air deserted him as his chest flared in renewed pain.

"Even a mortal should know his betters. You will address will me as king or not at all." It was going to be not at all – Tony literally could not draw breath. Under other circumstances, it might have been a problem; with Loki's curse on him it was... still a massive problem, because _owowowow._

Could Thor even kill him? If he _couldn't_ –

"Every moment of these days past that I haven't spent searching for your miserable hide, I've spent contemplating suitable punishment. At first, I thought it that wretched, _bodiless_ spirit, and I prepared sorceries to contain it once and for all... but, no. Coward that it was, it would not have dared harm a hair on my Queen's head. It knew its _place_."

Abruptly, the weight on his chest disappeared, and Tony reflexively sucked in air – only to be denied, halfway through, when the broken ribs and now-misaligned reactor housing decided to register significant protest against this action. He choked, his muscles spasming in the dual need to breathe/not breathe, and then choked again, all his consciousness focused on _not screaming_ as Mjolnir came down upon his lower legs, shattering his shins. His eyes rolled back in his head as he struggled, tried to think past the pain. Slowly, he managed to come to an equilibrium of quick, gasped breaths, and the black spots that had taken over his vision faded.

His breath was gurgling in his throat. Blood in the lungs. Well, that was... bad.

Oh, Jesus Christ, oh motherfucking god ow –

"I'd thought to take you back to Asgard, no matter the decision of the Skyfathers' Council," Thor continued, his voice a thunderous growl that filled the room to bursting, made Tony's aching head throb – and how the hell was he aware he had a headache, when so much of the rest of him was in agony? Fuck his life. "There, you'd take the traitor's place beneath the snake, for such a time until its acid ate through your skull – but no! I am _denied!_"

Something more crashed; a lot of somethings. It sounded vaguely like Thor might have hammered the loop generator into total scrap by pounding Mjolnir down upon the ruins of the door. Well. Shit. He realized, suddenly, that he was making small, pathetic noises, as the gibbering fear in his stomach climbed up his throat.

"For all your sins, another has already claimed redress, and this curse I cannot break! And yet," uh-oh, he was growing calmer, that was bad – Tony tried to speak, wheezed something that might have been begging, but Thor ignored it, continued: "I must admit, such creativity has... _merit_."

Oh god. Ohgod, _ohgod_ –

A warm hand encircled his right wrist. Tony rolled his head over to the side to see Thor on one knee beside him, Tony's wrist grasped in one massive hand. Weakly, he tried to pull away, before he could think better of it – but of course, that was useless. Thor pushed his hand down, flat against the ground, pulling the muscles across Tony's chest as well – he nearly went into spasms of coughing again, and the effort of holding them back made his head swim.

"My Queen once observed that the scientists of Midgard are like unto the sorcerers of the Aesir," Thor said softly. "She – was very wise. The punishment for the misuse of sorcery is to deny its practice to the miscreant. Your punishment shall be the same."

He raised Mjolnir in his left hand, and Tony had time to gasp, bubble, "No – " before he brought it down, ever so carefully, on Tony's thumb. Painpain_pain_ – Thor ground down one bone at a time before moving on to the next, reducing his thumb to so much floppy paste without simply severing the flesh, and thus keeping the nerves wholly intact – Tony couldn't see his hand anymore; his vision had blurred with tears and white spots of lightning agony. It felt like one giant mass of pain, but somehow he felt it still when Thor moved on to the index finger – he tried giving in, letting the white spots expand, but Thor seemed to catch on to this and halted, patting him gently on the cheek until his brain stopped swimming away. "_Please,_" he sobbed, "_no – "_

Thor continued.

At some point, he finished with the right hand and reached for the left. Tony did black out, then, when Thor pulled him away from the wall to get room to stretch his left arm out upon the ground, but Thor waited until he'd reawakened to the agony in his right before starting on the left.

For a while after he drifted, unable to speak. His head lolled on his neck – he wasn't sure why he was still trying to breathe, but for some reason his body wouldn't stop putting forth the effort. A giant blur above him rumbled something, but the words made no sense to him; he couldn't comprehend past the agony.

Time passed. Clarity returned in slow inches. At some point he became aware that if he managed to roll onto his side, he would find it easier to breathe – but he could not have said if this was his thought or someone else's, or even why doing so was important. The effort for such a task seemed immense, far beyond him, so he stayed where he was, breathing in fitful, whining gasps. Thor was gone, had been gone; his punishment remained.

_Do it,_ something told him – some external force, perhaps, or maybe a last, unknown reserve. _Roll over. Come on. You can do it. Don't black out. Don't black out. DON'T BLACK OUT – _

With a silent scream, he pulled his right arm over his body; blackness hovered, but the bellowing voice in his head kept it just at bay, until his ruined right hand hit the concrete on the other side of his body, and then he was gone.

The dark was no mercy. Pain followed him down. Sometime later, he swam back up to the bitter agony. His vision was blurry with tears, but he could see that the loop generator was gone. Oh, god. Tony sobbed into the concrete floor, resting his cheek against it – oh, god, he wanted to go _home_. He wanted Steve – thank _fuck_ Steve hadn't been there, but _oh, God, Steve, help me, please – _

Steve. The single, non-looping setup. It was still there, still set for New York – he could use it, now, go _home_. Go – not here. Anywhere but here. He just had to – he tried to lift himself, using the weight of his legs to counterbalance, and was abruptly reminded that Thor had broken those, too; his feet weren't responding properly, even though they didn't really hurt, the pain a mere drop in the bucket compared to his hands.

Somehow, he dragged himself forward, inch by inch; his vision was almost gone again, but his mental map of the room remained, even if it wavered whenever he moved his arms in the slightest. Barely able to breathe for the agony – _you don't need to breathe,_ that same something insisted, but his lungs didn't seem to want to pay attention – he pulled himself forward, toward the computer.

The AR was still connected to the generator. All the cabling. He hadn't needed to _disconnect_ any of it, so he didn't need to reconnect anything now – he just needed to bring up the program, even though the computer, the keyboard, were all... far above him. Out of reach.

He might have started crying again. Everything was blurry; he didn't know if it was blurrier than before. More dragging, and then he rolled himself bodily against the makeshift desk he'd been using. It shifted a bit – almost enough. Almost. Almost done, almost done – he drove himself onward with singular focus, using the pain as fuel in some sort of sadistic feedback loop. Almost done, and then he could – the keyboard finally knocked free, crashed down to the floor, the cord catching it partway and leaving it partly hanging, with only one edge against the floor. He tabbed – not with his fingers, but with his face, because ohgod his hands, but he'd done it, he just had to pull it over – just a bit further – so he was close enough to the centre of the room when –

"You can't," Steve said, right beside his ear. Warm arms encircled Tony, but they weren't reassuring – they were holding him back, _keeping him here_. He just wanted to hit the button and _go_ –

"Nnno," Tony moaned, trying to shake his head; Steve had a hand on his jaw, keeping him from leaning forward and hitting the enter key. It was a hallucination, it had to be – but he couldn't move. "Please..." Why wouldn't Steve let him _go?_ Why was he keeping him here, in agony – _no..._

"If you go back to New York your hands will still be broken," Steve said, but that was Obie's hand on his chest, near the gaping, empty socket where the arc reactor should be. Obie, holding him down. "You'll still be dying – "

Prosthetic hands, Tony thought wildly, deliriously. Fuck, fuck waiting for them to heal, he'd just cut off those slabs of ground meat – the thought of them going numb was his sweetest desire –

" – you'll be pushed back months. Years. Loki isn't going to wait – you have the advantage now, while that other you is distracting him – "

_Fuck_ Loki, fuck him and his brother, Loki could fucking do what he pleased – Tony was never going to be able to stop him, he'd never had a chance, and especially not now –

" – you can fix it, you just have to change the coordinates," Steve was saying, and Tony didn't _care_, he'd have done anything that Steve said if only it would make him _let go_ – "Still your Earth, just a different spot on it. You can do it - latitude twenty-two-point – "

Tony mashed his nose against the keyboard some more, barely comprehending what he was doing. When he looked up to see the lights on the screen, they were all fuzzy, impossible to read – but Steve hummed, pleased, and rubbed a soothing circle on his back, ordering him, "You have to stay awake until you override the code. Not this one – the one in your head. The code – focus on the code. Remember that."

And then, finally, he let Tony tilt forward, to hit the key that would send him home.

White light flashed – and then, again, but this time from neurons misfiring, pain translating itself into brilliant fireworks, pain from sudden, violent dislocation in space and time. He half-screamed, choked again when his ribs protested, and sobbed for breath; he didn't know where he was but Steve had told him, _code – _he clung to that thought; _code_, and then he could rest, then everything would go away –

There was a sound like a groan; it might have come from him. Tony didn't know. His ears were ringing oddly. There was pressure, on the ruined meat of his hand, something piercing the flesh there and he screamed, a ragged high whistle – but he couldn't black out, he had to stay awake, focused, focus on the code, _code, code code _**_code _****code**

**code**

**U+63 U+6F U+64 U+65**

**U+63 U+6F U+64 U+65**

**U+63 U+6F U+64 U+65**

**U+6**

**01100011 01101111 01100100 01100101**

**01100011 01101111 01100100 01100101**

**01100011 01101111 011001**

**00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000**

* * *

"He must have gotten delayed."

Natasha – his Natasha, the one from _this_ world, Steve's _home_ – tilted her head and patted his arm. Not without sympathy. Clint, in the other corner, continued to look uncomfortable – as he had ever since he'd entered the room where two of his teammates were watching a corpse.

"Captain," Sitwell said for perhaps the fourth time – though he hadn't dared enter the room fully, "you need to get checked out by medical." He had a pair of SHIELD guards behind him – not much of a threat; Steve had proven that ages ago – but there were others, in the hallway, all around, keeping the perimeter. The decaying corpse within the coffin remained motionless. There was a glass window over the coffin itself – and Steve wanted to thank whoever had thought of _that_, because otherwise the stench would have been unbearable.

"I need to talk to Dr. Banner," Steve said, as he had the last three times. "If something went wrong with the loop generator, or something..."

"Doc's busy, Steve," Clint shifted, grimaced. "You should go to medical."

Steve looked from him to Natasha, who gave him a small nod. Still not without sympathy. But there was no belief on her face.

"I am not crazy." He knew how his story sounded; he'd had five hours to discuss it with them, even though there were bits that he couldn't, wouldn't relate. Things that he didn't want to say, particularly about the Infinite Embassy.

"You've been under a lot of stress, and you were exposed to extremis only a few days before you disappeared," she said gently – too gently. He wasn't going to break, he wasn't going to –

"Where's Bruce?" he asked, rather than continue that line of thought.

"Smashing super-zombies." Clint wasn't just uncomfortable, Steve realized for the first time – he was _impatient_. He wanted to be doing something else – something more important than watching to see if Captain America was having a complete breakdown. Something like...

"Because Thor was recalled to Asgard," Steve said through numb lips. Because it had happened on one world, but that didn't meant it was the only one – because the loop had spanned thousands, maybe millions, he didn't know how many –

Because some truths, like the Chief Magistrate herself, were universal. And something was coming for all the worlds of Earth, and all the pantheons of all its gods might not be enough to stand in its way.

"Steve," Natasha said, and he closed his eyes against the sympathy in her voice. "You should go to medical."

* * *

_THE NEW YORK TIMES:Tuesday, December 10, 2013__**  
**__CHINA NUKES NANOVIRUS GROUND ZERO  
By William Richardson _

_At 10PM EST Monday night, twenty-four hours after giving the international community official notice of its plan, the Chinese government dropped a series of thermonuclear warheads over Shenzhen and the surrounding regions, including northern Hong Kong. Evacuations of the areas had been in progress since the outbreak, but Chinese officials estimate that nearly 3 million people remained within the lethal-blast-radius, with over 98% of those remaining already infected by the Nanoplague. The International Red Cross puts those figures at 5.2M and 70% respectively..._

_..."The situation is untenable," Chinese president Xi Jinping stated on Sunday, during his address to the international community. "In the last two days the virus has begun rapidly spreading north, bypassing our quarantine, despite all possible, desperate effort to hold it back. We have a duty to China. We have a duty to the rest of the world. We must not let any more towns, any more families, be claimed by this plague."_

_Amid wide-spread condemnation of the plan, some question if the move has come too late. Pockets of outbreaks continue to appear over China and south-east Asia, and rumours are buzzing that on Saturday a village in Bangladesh was overcome..._

* * *

A/N: And that's it! Hammer falls; everybody dies. Series over!

...just kidding. In all seriousness, I do apologize for ending yet another installment on a cliff-hanger, but this really is the most logical place to put the divisor between _One Step Left_ and the next long installment (as I hope most of you will agree when it begins posting).

That above-mentioned next installment will be titled _The Western Road_ and it will _not_ end on a cliff-hanger. It is also unlikely to begin posting until December (at the earliest), because it's probably going to be my longest story yet _and _I'm doing Marvel Bang again this year – for a different (and much shorter, but still long enough to take up a fair chunk of time) story. So, when I can start posting TWR depends on how that goes. Sometime before December I will be posting another short story for this series, and at that time I'll hopefully be able to announce my timeframe for TWR with more certainty.

If you would like to see the list of links and references I have for this story, please check out the end notes for the version of it uploaded to the AO3 (my profile for which is linked to on my FFN profile), since FFN won't let me use links and that makes referencing things a pain.

As always, constructive criticism is welcome and you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed.


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